To Cleave the Stars
by Hollywithaneye
Summary: When Loki becomes tangled in his own web of lies, truth and clarity comes from the oddest of places - and Jane learns that the cruelest masks are those made for us by others. Post-Avengers, Lokane
1. Chapter 1 - A Hollow Victory

_It's been done, many times and many ways...but here's my humble little addition to the fandom. Song for this chapter: Mykonos, by Fleet Foxes_

The eyes are not here  
There are no eyes here  
In this valley of dying stars  
In this hollow valley  
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places  
We grope together  
And avoid speech  
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless  
The eyes reappear  
As the perpetual star  
Multifoliate rose

Of death's twilight kingdom  
The hope only  
Of empty men.

_- The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot_

Defeat didn't taste like ashes so much as it did the cloying sweetness of rotten fruit.

Loki had plenty of time to examine the flavor, how the shame and anger sat uneasily in his stomach like too much mead as he was towed along behind Thor, chained and muzzled like some mad cur to be staked outside. It was too much to bear, simply too much, but no matter how he chafed against his restraints they were as immovable as Mjolnir. As Thor said his farewells to the other members of this ragtag group Midgard had assembled, Loki could do little but seethe silently. Seethe...and plan...for as long as there was still breath in his body, he would never cease his search for vindication against Asgard's shining prince.

At long last Thor turned to him, his blue eyes full of a resigned sadness that looked so out of place on his usually jovial face. "Well, brother. Are you ready to return home at last?" His voice was quiet, the words pressed down by an exhaustion that carved deep lines into Thor's forehead. There was no question, the fight had demanded much of his brother. It was a small victory, to be sure. But at this point, Loki would take any sort he could find. Unable to reply, he simply narrowed his eyes icily at Thor and lifted his chin - as ready to be on their way as he would get.

Truth be told, he was hardly in any better shape. The past weeks had taken their own toll on Loki, and being half-crushed by Banner's green mongrel had left his body broken and battered almost beyond his own ability to repair it. Even now, some days later, his skin was mottled with bruises and there were still bones he swore he could hear grinding together in places. As Thor offered him the handle of the Tesseract he had to force his hand not to tremble as he grasped it, force his muscles to curl his battered fingers around the cold metal grip. The cool bite of it against his palm stung, and behind the mask that stifled his magic his mouth turned down bitterly. His last thoughts, before the blue wash of the Tesseract crested over their mirrored hands and Midgard faded from his sight, was to wonder idly which of them was the prodigal son.

The Tesseract deposited them at the tattered end of the broken Bifrost under the ever watchful eye of Heimdall, still standing stoically at his appointed post. His copper eyes slid over the tableau they painted, the brothers still joined by the faintly glowing cube, but if he found anything remarkable about the sight he kept his peace. Loki realized with a start that there was no one besides the three of them present, and he arched one raven brow in question at Thor. Where was Odin? Where was the mob, howling for blood? Rather than a rabble, there was nothing but the silence of the edge of the world and the softly glowing shards of the ruined Bifrost blending into the smudged cosmos behind them.

His mind racing, Loki glanced over at Thor, softening his features into something resembling mournful as he lifted a hand to touch the mask on his face. They both knew it was in place to guard the mortals and it was superfluous here, but whether or not Thor was incensed enough to leave it in place remained to be seen.

"My prince..." Heimdall said in soft warning as Thor lifted a hand to the cool metal that encased his brother's jaw, and for a moment his arm checked its movement.

Shoulders rounding, Thor blew out a heavy breath before glancing back at Heimdall. "I will not have him go before Father muzzled like some hound, Heimdall," he said. "Regardless of what he's done, he is still a prince." Thor's fingers touched the mask, a brief flash of light blanching them as the magic holding it in place flared out of existence and it dropped into his palm, an inert hunk of metal.

The breath Loki sucked in was far sweeter than any he'd had on Midgard, and his eyes fluttered shut briefly at the familiar air of Asgard, free from the stench of spent fuel and corruption. It took him a moment to find his voice, rusted with disuse. "Thank you," he said demurely, packing his rage and his shame into a tight ball that he stowed behind his breastbone so that he could turn a mild face to Thor. "You have always been honorable, Thor. Even to those who do not deserve it."

Thor watched him quietly a moment, mouth twisting ruefully. "You have always been deserving of honor, Loki. If only you could see that as well as I."

Loki let his eyes slide away from Thor's gaze, as if it was too painful to bear, and blinked over one of his armored shoulders. The shimmering ribbon of the Bifrost rolled off into the distance, and he could see the small but recognizable figure of Odin striding authoritatively towards them. "There is no gallows reformation for me, Thor. Save your breath." He stared out at the endless swath of stars, working a small hitch into his breath. "Only..." he let his voice trail off, as if he lacked the courage to continue.

"Only what?" Thor echoed with a healthy dose of suspicion.

Loki held up his arms beseechingly, the chain running between the manacles clinking softly in the silence, and gestured behind Thor. "There is enough shame on my shoulders, returning here. Do not make me face Father like some petty criminal."

"Loki...you know I cannot..." Thor began, shaking his head before glancing back to see Odin drawing near.

Loki broke in over the top of his protest. "Please, Thor." He brought his eyes back up meet Thor's own, satisfied to see them soften ever so slightly at the entreaty. The chinks in his brother's armor had always been so obvious, and Loki pressed the daggers of his words right for them, letting his eyes fill with meaningless tears. "If you ever cared for me, do not force me to stand before him in chains."

"His heart is full of treachery," Heimdall broke in, and Thor uttered a sharp bark of humorless laughter.

"When has his heart ever been filled with anything else?" he asked Heimdall with an undercurrent of bitterness. "There was a time once though, when it was reserved for those other than myself."

So close. Loki could see the battle within Thor, his desire to trust Loki once more warring with his sense of duty. It wouldn't take much, he was sure. A tiny push in the right direction, and Thor would topple...because he wanted so badly to be right. "Thanos' hold on me is gone, and I am my own free man now. We will stay right here with Heimdall and wait for Father. Place Mjolnir on my foot if it will please you." Loki placed one hand gingerly on Thor's forearm and baited his trap. "Please...brother." The last word was a ragged whisper, as if Loki had had to tear if from the very depths of his soul to utter, and he let one tear spill over.

There was a breathless moment where he doubted Thor would fall, before those cold blue eyes melted and Thor let out a deep sigh. He reached for the heavy manacles and the same frigid flash of light sparked once, twice, as he removed them each in sequence. No sooner had the thick circlets clattered to the ground than Loki had blinked out of existence, reappearing right at the frayed edge of the Bifrost just as Odin drew up beside Thor.

"Fools," he spat out, the rage unfurling from his chest to bloom in his throat, quaking his voice with its force. "Your trust will be the end of you one day, Thor!" At his back the open expanse of space was restless, wind flapping the edges of his bedraggled cloak. He glanced over his shoulder as Heimdall hefted his sword in his direction and began to advance.

"Loki!" Thor cried and started forward, Mjolnir in hand.

"Hold, both of you," Odin said softly, a resigned set to his shoulders. "Loki, do not do this."

"One day you will look back on this, and realize it was the beginning of the end, Thor!" Loki crowed, his voice rising in on a manic note. Rocking back on his heels, he threw himself over the raw edge of the Bifrost to plummet amongst the stars, opening himself to the secret pathways until he snagged on one and was yanked into it, winking out of sight.

"Watch him please," Odin commanded with a heavy voice, glancing up to meet Heimdall's questioning eyes once Loki had faded from view. "I have faith in Loki, still. Even if he has none in himself."

Heimdall nodded slowly, his uncanny gaze boring into Odin's own. "I mean no discourtesy, but...are you are sure about this? You may have just damned us all."

Thor snorted, shaking his head as he gathered the scattered restraints. "He may have. Or he may have just saved my brother. I refuse to believe that he is beyond reaching." He paused, and when he continued, there was a painfully raw thread of hope in his voice. "Tell me, Heimdall...are hate and treachery the _only_ things you see left in his heart?"

"No," the sentry rumbled quietly, moving to stand beside Thor and Odin as they all stared out at the ever-wheeling stars. "No, they are not."

* * *

Time had no meaning here, in these places between the stars.

As Loki fell through one of the cracks that only he could see, he had no idea where exactly it might take him. He was too weak, too worn thin, too...tired, after everything he'd been through to control much of anything. Realms and planets flashed before his eyes like a kaleidoscopic flipbook, faster and faster until he was dizzy and half-mad with the procession. It occurred to him that Fate was just ironic enough to drop him back in the realm of the Chitauri, and he was still laughing silently with more than an edge of hysteria when the fissure of reality widened and he slipped out.

The ground rushed up to meet him and he fell into its dusty embrace, limbs and cape and rock all tangled together in a shattered jumble. The pain, for one brief moment, was an unbearable wash that shredded nerves from muscle - until the blessedly cool hand of unconsciousness swept over his brow, and the darkness swallowed him.

* * *

It was embarrassing, if anyone else had known she was out here. She had never considered herself a particularly sentimental person, but she knew that if Erik or Darcy had been around she would have become the butt of many good-natured jabs, accusing her of pining for a man from the stars. Thankfully, since coming back to New Mexico Jane had been alone these past few weeks - Darcy had moved on to another internship while Jane had been in Oslo, and Erik was still being watched closely by SHIELD to ensure that he was no longer a danger to himself or others. She had visited him, once Director Fury had given her the green light to return to the States, and had been shocked by her dear friend's wan appearance. Whatever it was that had happened to him while she had been away had taken an obvious toll on her mentor, and she was glad to see that he was getting the care he needed. Although it did make for lonely hours puttering around her new laboratory, courtesy of SHIELD with the understanding she keep them in the loop of her research into the Einstein-Rosen Bridge.

So it was that she found herself where she did more nights than not when she wasn't working - lying atop the shiny hood of her new van at the edge of the odd pattern that had been branded into the ground where Thor had plunged to Earth, listening to the mournful yip of the coyotes and staring up at the night sky. The equipment and structures SHIELD had placed here when examining the phenomenon had long been removed, leaving behind just an eery design in a rocky landscape that felt as isolated as the moon itself. She told herself that there was a better view of the stars here than back at Puente Antigua. She knew that was a lie.

Overhead the sky was a dizzying spray of lights, diamonds strewn across the black velvet of the arching heavens. For some their distant immovable faces must seem cold, but for Jane they had always been a comfort. Ever reliable, ever unchanging - at least in her short lifespan. When everything else in life became unpredictable, she could always predict the stars.

But she couldn't predict Thor.

The normally soft breeze that blew grittily across the darkened desert grew teeth, gnashing at the tender line of skin where the collar of her thick jacket ended, and Jane sat up frowning. Dust was being whipped into her eyes and she put up a hand to shield them as loose brush and tumbleweed flew past. Far above her clouds boiled up from seemingly nowhere, swirling ominously overhead in a tightening vortex. Jane couldn't control the trembling of her hand or the stuttering beat of her heart as she watched, slack-jawed while the sky raged and her mind could only stumble over and over on the same word.

_Thor__._

No sooner had her lips moved around the shape of his name than a brilliant white ball streaked from the center of the furious storm, looking for all the world like a comet come to earth. With a bone-jarring impact it slammed into the center of the crater, shaking the ground around and sending Jane sliding off the hood of the van to land on her hands and knees in the rocky path that served as a road out here. She scarcely noticed the stinging of her scraped palms as she scrambled to her feet, halfway to the edge of the circle before she'd even realized she was in motion.

"Thor!" she cried out as nearly tumbled over her own feet, catching herself just before falling entirely, the sand and earth still warm beneath her hands from the energy of the strike. Her voice was the only sound that broke the eerie silence that had fallen over the desert - no coyotes howled, no owls hooted. The quiet was a tangible thing that pressed down on her ears, and she'd never before noticed how silence could have a volume all its own.

There was a figure huddled in the center of the snaking pattern, so covered in grime and grit she could scarcely make out a detail save that it was larger than herself. Uncertainty slowed her footsteps as she drew closer to the motionless form, far more lithe than the prince she'd met, and she wrapped arms around a midsection suddenly gone cold.

"Thor?" she called again, but the question was soft and she already knew the answer. Whoever that was..._whatever_ it was, it wasn't Thor.

The body was curled on its side facing away from her, nearly face down in the cracked and parched earth, and from where she stood she couldn't even tell if it was breathing. It was definitely male though judging from the height and narrow hips. Jane reached out place a tentative hand on his shoulder, in spite of all those warnings echoing in her head from First-Aid classes a decade ago that moving an injured person was a very bad idea. His odd leather tunic was covered in dust and cold beneath her fingers, an abrupt contrast to the heat of the impact site. As gently as she could she eased the body towards herself, feeling the point at which momentum took over and she let go. The body finished rolling with a sort of boneless flop that belied just how injured the man was, onto his back where the watery moonlight spilled over his upturned profile as she crouched over him.

Stilled as his features were, they gave Jane pause. His skin was pale and smooth underneath the dirt and injuries, as if she had unearthed some ancient shard of porcelain from the desert sands. Sharp angles were kept just this side of severe by the gently arching wings of his brows, blacker than a crow's, and hair to match curled softly about his shoulders. All so familiar...but she couldn't place where she had seen him before. Dark lashes fluttering against his high cheekbones told her he was still alive, at least, and Jane let out a small sigh of relief.

Until those lashes lifted, and she was pinned by eyes the distant cold green of glacial ice. Even unfocused as they were they froze her in place, and she knew how the mouse must feel as it was pinned by the serpent's gaze. "Oh no," she whispered, one hand flying up to cover her mouth in horror as recognition clicked into place. "No, no, no, no..."

She knew who this man was. Had seen his face, snarled by hatred and rage on countless news feeds as he ran roughshod over her world.

"Loki," she breathed, the name slipping from her lips thoughtlessly.

At the sound, his eyes sharpened and he seemed to see her for the first time. Breath rattled in his chest as he moved his mouth to speak, words forming but no sound emerging. A wet cough broke through his efforts, and his body shuddered beneath her hand as he rode the spasms. "I...know you," he ground out finally, and Jane flinched at his words. A terrible bloodstained grin spread over his face, and laughter pitched with more than an edge of hysteria shook his lean frame. "It would...seem...that Fate has...a sense of humor...after all," he gasped out, just before his eyes slid shut again and his limbs went slack.

Jane could only stare down open-mouthed at the monster sprawled before her. So much destruction... so much _pain_ he had caused. For a brief moment, some darker part of herself whispered that she should just get up, walk back to the van and never look back. Now that she had moved Loki from where he had originally landed, she could see the dark seep of blood into the thirsty earth as it pulsed from his left arm. It wasn't quite an arterial bleed...but in his condition, it was close enough.

She knew she could never in a million years listen to that voice and not hate herself.

"Damn," she swore softly, at the situation and at herself. Unzipping her thick overcoat and setting it aside, she took off the ratty flannel of her favorite old shirt and tied the length of material as tightly as she could around the injured arm, hampered by the thick leather that encased his limbs. If only she had cell service this far out...she could at least call SHIELD, and they could come handle this mess.

Looking back at the distance to the van, she sighed. Dragging him would probably injure him even worse, but the only other option was to drive off and leave him lying here while she found help, and there were too many creatures in the dark of the desert that would seize the opportunity. Raking her unruly hair back from her face, Jane hooked her arms beneath his shoulders and began the slow process of hauling his surprisingly heavy frame to the nearby van.

It took her a half hour of sweating, swearing, and panting to get him to the back door of the vehicle. Jane thanked providence that the van had a ramp installed that unfolded from the cargo area to load heavy equipment. If she'd had to actually try to lift Loki she didn't know what she would have done. Even prone she could tell he towered at least a good foot in height over herself, lean muscle stretched over a lanky frame. With a few last grunts she had him stowed in the back of the van, leaving Jane to heave her aching muscles into the driver seat and press her sweaty forehead against the cool steering wheel, eyes closed.

She should take him straight to SHIELD. She should drive back to town, find a signal on her phone, and call Director Fury. He would be taken away, locked up in custody again in some deep dark hole, never to bother her again.

And they would lock the secret of travel between the realms away with him.

Jane's heart lurched at the thought.

* * *

_Author's Note: This story is written out entirely, at least in rough draft form. I will be updating as each chapter gets cleaned up and polished for consumption - ideally once or twice a week. I hope you enjoy the ride with me!_


	2. Chapter 2 - A Tiger by the Tail

_Thank __you __everyone __for __your __kind __responses __to __the __first __chapter__. __I __hope __you __enjoy __this __one __as __well__._

_Song __of __the __chapter__: __Running __to __the __Sea - __Röyksopp__ & __Susanne __Sundfør_

* * *

He thought for a few moments after he awoke that he would rather have died. Pain was a fanged, clawed beast that gnawed on every nerve and raked furrows in his guts. His head felt as if it had been smashed by Mjolnir itself, as if his scalp was the only thing holding fragments of his skull together. He turned his face to the side and feared for one horrible second that he would lose the contents of his stomach, concentrated on pulling in great lungfuls of bracing air to fend off the nausea.

Light wavered on the other side of his clenched eyelids and he cautiously cracked them open, the bright glow sending shafts of ice into his battered brain. A small wounded noise, more a whimper than anything, crept out between his cracked and dry lips.

"Oh good. You're not dead."

At the sound of a quiet voice nearby Loki opened his eyes wider, grimacing at the harsh artificial illumination that shone down on his face. Features swam into focus, vaguely familiar, and he puzzled to place them. Female. Mortal...Jane Foster. Thor's Midgardian whore. His eyes darted around, taking in what they could of his surroundings. He seemed to be lying on a rug on the floor of a large open living space, propped up by a haphazard collection of pillows. He tried to speak but his lips moved soundlessly, throat too parched for the passage of words.

"You probably need a drink after all that sand you ate," she said as she stood up, and there was the sound of water running from some distance away before she returned, a full glass in hand. "Here," she offered, holding it out towards him. He went to lift his hand to take it, only his arm didn't seem to be obeying his commands. Frowning, she moved around to his right side and placed the glass carefully into that hand, not letting go until she was sure his shaking grip could hold its weight. Cool water slid down his throat, washing away some of the grit, and Loki thought it might have been the sweetest draught he'd ever tasted.

He watched over the rim of the glass as Jane stepped back out of his arm's reach and nervously crossed her arms over her midsection. Dust and grime marked her own clothes as much as his, and he could see where sweat had marked through her clothing. "Sorry, I tried to put you on the couch...but I couldn't lift you that high," she said with an apologetic wince. "At least the rug gives you some padding."

He drained the last of the water and set the glass carefully aside. "Praise be for small comforts," he drawled acidically, his voice almost none the worse for wear now.

An angry flush spread over her face as her brow furrowed. "Yes, well...I did the best I could. I could have just left you there as coyote bait," she retorted.

Loki struggled to sit up further, breath hissing out as the motion kindled fresh blazes of agony. His left arm still dangled almost uselessly from the shoulder, and around his bicep was knotted some garish scrap of cheap fabric now liberally soaked with his own blood. Examining it with gently probing fingers, he spared a glance up at her. "That is the question that interests me most. Why didn't you? You know who I am."

Swallowing hard, her eyes drifted away from his and she shifted her weight to one foot, crossing her arms even tighter. Loki recognized it as a defensive posture, probably meaning she was unsure of how her words would be received. "You shouldn't be here. I should have called SHIELD the moment I saw you fall, as soon as I recognized you." She rubbed one thin hand over her brow and sighed. "But then I realized...you have something I want. And I have something you need."

"Indeed?" he asked, lifting both brows in surprise as curiosity unwound slowly at her bold declaration. "And what could you possibly offer that would be of any interest to me?"

Heartened by his interest, Jane crouched by his side, her brown eyes intent as they bored into his. Whatever it was she wanted it desperately, and he was intrigued. "Refuge. A place to hide, and to heal. I will keep SHIELD from finding you while you regain your strength...and in return, you help me figure out how to travel between the realms."

A slow smile spread across his face and his good arm darted out to grasp her chin firmly in his hand. Shock and fear washed across her face in a heady flood and she flailed ineffectively against his grip, her feeble mortal strength no match for even his own depleted reserves. His gaze searched hers as he mulled over her proposition. Undoubtedly, she would try to double-cross him in the end - he could see the indignant spark in her eyes that told him she was too honorable to betray her own people by allowing him to roam free on Midgard. Chuckling, he released his hold on her and sat back heavily against the pillows, fatigued by even that small show of strength.

"So you seek to make a deal with the Devil, do you?" He tilted his head to one side and amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. "What is there to stop me from simply making you my puppet as Erik was, Jane?" At the sound of his name she flinched, ever so slightly, and inside he crowed with triumph. _There_, that was the nerve he was trying to find. She and her mentor had obviously been close. "Oh yes...Erik Selvig told me a great many things about you, Miss Foster," he added softly.

Her jaw ticked with suppressed anger as she turned her head away, having scrambled back to stand on her feet some distance away. "You can barely sit up straight right now," she scoffed, and he was hard pressed to dispute her. "Besides, SHIELD comes by every so often for progress reports. If I look or act differently in any way, they're going to recognize it." She fixed him with an angry glare. "We will not fall for your tricks again."

He regarded her in silence for some moments. He had to admit, the offer had appeal. In the worst case, he could simply stall and feed her false information until he felt strong enough to brave jumping between the realms again - although if humanity wanted to bumble amongst the stars like children playing in traffic it was of little concern to him. "Very well. I agree to your terms."

"Just like that?" She raised her brow skeptically.

Loki sighed. "Yes. Just like that."

"Ah. Ok," Jane rocked back on her heels, obviously unbalanced by his acquiescence. Turning away she began rummaging through a large box placed on a nearby table, and he took the time to look around at the temporary prison he had just shut himself in. Simple concrete walls were studded by large panes of glass that looked out onto the lonely expanse of desert, although the glare from the light inside didn't afford much of a view. An open living room merged freely into both kitchen and workspace, one corner lined with bookshelves that groaned beneath the weight of countless volumes and spread to sloppy stacks on the floor. In the center of the room a freestanding fireplace crackled merrily, throwing heat and shadows.

"This does not seem like the laboratory Erik described to me," Loki said, frowning at the disparity between what his eyes saw and the recollections of the mortal scientist. "Where are we?"

She glanced sharply over her shoulder at him before returning her attention to the box, setting aside various bottles and packages. "A few miles outside of Puente Antiguo, where my old lab was. SHIELD thought that I should be a bit more isolated if I was going to be handling top secret equipment." She turned from the box with an armful of items and knelt beside his injured arm, setting bottles and rolls of fabric carefully on the floor at her knees.

He eyed the assortment with misgiving. "Please do not tell me this is what passes for medical attention on this realm."

"Do you have a better idea?" she asked shortly, twisting the lid off a bottle marked 'hydrogen peroxide'. "Should I take you to a hospital, where you can be poked and prodded by doctors, and locked in some lab if they figure out you are not quite human? This will at least keep you from getting an infection."

Loki snorted with derision. "As if an Aesir has anything to worry about from the common germ." He pulled himself, struggling, to a full sit and worried at the knotted cloth around his arm once more, gritting his teeth against the searing pain each jostle awakened. "Take this off," he said with an imperious lift of his chin.

"So you can bleed all over my floor?" Jane asked mutinously, but complied at his dark glare. The soaked fabric was tacky with drying blood, and it took her some minutes of wrestling before the knot came loose in her hands. He hissed as the cloth stuck to broken skin beneath, and as she pulled it away sharply blood welled up in its place. The shredded leather of his sleeve gaped wide to expose the underside of his bicep, and amongst the crimson pooling along the tear he could see a jagged spur of white, shining in the firelight.

"Is that...bone?" Jane asked faintly, her face paling.

"Well it's certainly not skin, is it?" he snapped, feeling light-headed himself at the prospect of what had to be done. Cautiously he walked the fingers of his good hand around the site of the break, feeling muscle and bone in unnatural formation beneath them, pausing to gasp in air when the agony threatened to overwhelm him. One wrong movement and the raw end of bone might have shredded his artery. Wrapping it as tightly as she had with her makeshift bandage probably meant that Jane had saved his life. Not that she needed to know it.

"We'll have to set it before I can try to heal it," he said, his voice sounding wan even to himself.

He hadn't thought it possible for Jane to get any whiter. "Set it? Dear God." Her dark eyes grew large in her face.

Loki's lip curled. "I assure you, the idea holds no appeal for me either. But there is no one else around, and if you don't want me to bleed out right here at your feet, you must do as I say. Now, grab my hand and brace your foot against my leg, and on the count of three give it a sharp tug." Loki closed his eyes and drew in a bracing breath as he felt her slender hands slip into his own chilled fingers. He had never pictured a situation where he would willingly let a mortal touch him, and here he was dependent upon it to save his life. Fate did have strange plans, at times.

The sole of her sensible boot pressed firmly against his thigh and he looked up to see her solemn face. "Ready when you are," she said, a grim set to her mouth.

He nodded sharply, and began to count. "One...two...three!"

On three, Jane threw her weight backwards and a blinding wave of pain crashed over him as he felt his arm extend, muscle and sinew protesting as the uneven ends of bone grated into place. He scarcely noticed when her fingers slid from his own and she dropped to her knees beside him, too busy panting air in tiny gasping breaths trying to ride out the agony that rocked his frame.

"Are you alright?" she asked, concern twisting her features as she knotted her fingers together in her lap.

"No," he forced out, between clenched teeth. "But I will be. Soon enough."

Gathering what little reserves he had, Loki slapped his good hand over the bloodied mess of his arm and sent cautious pulses of magic into the torn flesh and ravaged bone, carefully twisting the fibers of his being back together. Weak...so weak. He wouldn't be able to finish the job, could scarcely scrape together the energy to stop the bleeding and begin knitting bone. "That...should hold it together." His voice sounded faraway, almost indiscernible over the rush of his own pulse in his ears, and anything else he might have said was swallowed up as the dark waters of unconsciousness closed over his head.

* * *

The merciless New Mexico sun came knocking far too early for Jane's taste, glaring through the bare windows like an angry yellow eye, and she groaned her protest. She'd forgotten to close the blinds again, having dropped into bed like a stone sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Rolling over she cracked one eye open at the nightstand where the baleful red stare of her alarm clock sat unblinking. 6:00 AM. She'd gotten four hours of sleep. Not _nearly_ enough rest to deal with what was in her living room.

She was half-tempted to drift back off to sleep, had huddled back into the nest of blankets and pillows when the growl of her stomach cut through the quiet morning. With an exasperated sigh she threw back the comforter and shuffled out of bed, throwing on the first rumpled clothes her questing hands found. She wasn't winning any beauty contests, if the face staring back from the mirror of her adjacent bathroom was any indication, but she had no one here to impress.

Hair brushed and pulled back into a loose ponytail, Jane yawned her way to the small kitchen along the far wall and punched the power button on her coffee pot, grounds and water she'd prepared the night before beginning their aromatic union. A glance at the comfy battered couch that snuggled up to the fireplace told her that her guest was still asleep, having somehow hauled himself up and onto the softer surface of the sofa. It had cost him though, she would bet - Loki's pale face was even more bloodless in the bright sunlight, the tousled sable hair that fell haphazardly over his forehead making the contrast even more pronounced. His left arm was still in the crude sling she'd fashioned from an old pillowcase she'd found. He had been so out of it even the jostling of her clumsy efforts hadn't woken him up.

As the coffee pot burbled its closing notes, Jane opened the short fridge that hid beneath the counter and pulled free a carton of eggs and a small container of milk. Ordinarily she would probably skip breakfast altogether, perhaps nibbling on a slice of toast or a bowl of cereal as she sipped her coffee and began work, but Loki had lost a lot of blood the night before. He would probably benefit from the extra iron of eggs. That was, if his anatomy was anything at all like a humans. She really was driving blind here.

She puttered around the stove, pulling bowl and skillet from cupboards as she set about whisking the eggs up to scramble. Her small stovetop sparked to life as she twisted the knob, blue flames dancing merrily beneath the burner. SHIELD had wanted her lab as self-sufficient as possible, so her roof was studded with solar panels, her water came from a well, and her heating and cooking was fueled by the large propane tank that sat adjacent to the building. She was entirely 'off the grid' out here, so to speak. Jane found it both a comfort and unsettling.

The dull thunk of her skillet hitting the burner was apparently enough to rouse Loki. She caught motion from the corner of her eye and heard the faint rustle as he adjusted himself on the cushions. Jane turned around cautiously, unsure as to what sort of mood she should expect from him. She had trouble reconciling the near sociopath that she had seen on TV and that SHIELD had described to her with the man lying on her couch. He was doubtlessly arrogant, haughty and perhaps cruel...but he didn't seem prone to wanton destruction.

Or maybe he just hadn't had the opportunity yet.

_Good__Lord__._ She was in so deep.

Swallowing down the lump of fear that had begun rising in her throat, Jane plastered a wobbly smile on her face. "Good morning."

His dark head turned in her direction, and even from several paces across the room his unnerving green eyes pinned her. "What is that smell?" he asked, nose wrinkling.

Jane blinked around the kitchen, unsure of what he was referring to. "My cooking?" She frowned, vaguely insulted by the insinuation. She knew she wasn't much of a cook, but surely she couldn't mess up something as simple as scrambled eggs. Turning back to push the congealing mass around with a spatula, her eyes landed on the full carafe of coffee. "Oh, the coffee maybe?" She glanced back over her shoulder at him. "Thor didn't seem to know what it was either."

A faint tightening around his eyes was the only indication he'd heard her, and his gaze drifted to the windows to stare fixedly at the pearly sunrise outside. With a bemused shake of her head Jane returned her attention to breakfast, turning the stove off and dividing the eggs evenly between two battered, mismatched plates. Pouring coffee into a couple of chipped mugs, Jane balanced the whole spread on a tray and carefully made her way to the couch.

She placed the tray down on the small coffee table that stood between the sofa and the fire, now back in its rightful place on the rug after being displaced by Loki last night. "Do you think that you can sit up to eat?" she asked apprehensively as she settled into an adjacent armchair. The thought of having to feed him was frankly terrifying.

He swept a critical eye over her offering, the beginnings of a sneer curling his upper lip, and Jane found herself flushing with embarrassment. If SHIELD was right, he was a prince. Eating off her thrift-store stoneware was probably beyond insulting...and then her brows snapped together mulishly. He might be a prince - but he was still a monster. This was more than he deserved.

She watched quietly as he struggled to a seated position, hampered by the soft cushions and a lack of two functioning arms. Some part of her wanted to offer help, but the rest stayed her hands. It might have been a bit petty to enjoy how hard he labored, but she didn't owe him any courtesy. Only her silence.

At long last he was upright and reached one hand that trembled slightly towards the mug of coffee, the contents sloshing perilously close to the rim as he lifted it to his lips and took an experimental sip. He blinked in surprise as he seemed to roll the flavor around in his mouth. "It's...bitter," he said at last, and took a second drink. "But it has a certain charm."

She nodded in agreement and lifted a forkful of fluffy eggs to her mouth, stomach rumbling happily at the prospect of being filled. "I guess they don't have coffee in Asgard," she said after swallowing, loading her fork again. "Or in Jotunheim either, for that matter," she added, proud that she had remembered the way Erik pronounced the odd word.

Glancing up she saw he had frozen with the mug partway to his mouth again, his face gone bloodless and his eyes rounded with shock. "And what would you know of Jotunheim, mortal?" he asked as he seemed to recover, with a voice as deadly and smooth as the slide of scales over skin.

The eggs went ashen on her tongue at the dangerous turn of his mood, and Jane struggled to swallow them with a throat gone dry. "I...ah, that is..." her voice faltered, and she cleared her throat before beginning again. "Erik had this book of myths he showed me...it said how you were born a jotun and that the frost giants lived in Jotunheim, and Odin adopted you..." She knew she was babbling, and her brain was frantically trying to get her traitorous mouth to just _shut__up_, horror sizzling in her veins as Loki's face grew stormier with every word.

"And how would a mortal know anything about the Aesir?" he broke in, slamming his drink back on the coffee table, heedless of the scalding coffee that splashed over the back of his hand. "You know nothing. Nothing!" His voice ended on a shout and his jade-chip eyes were harder than flint as they bored into hers. She flinched back from his vitriol, and between the space of one blink and the next he was suddenly there - hands gripping the arms of her chair tight enough to turn knuckles white, his face inches from hers as he caged her in the angry trap of his sneer. "You are a puling white grub, a blind worm writhing in its own refuse. I have sat on the throne of Asgard, held Gungnir in my hands! You, _mortal_, are not even fit to speak Odin's name!"

Terror pressed Jane back in the seat and ran icily like seawater down her spine. For some moments she could only gape numbly at the frothing spectacle of Loki's ire, her brain chasing itself in circles. Turning her face away, trying to block out the sight of his, she saw over his shoulder the couch he had just miraculously risen from - and the telltale depressions that marred it, as if a human-shaped weight still weighed down upon it.

Jane was not given to anger, but the blessed warmth of it chased the chills of fear away. She knew, from Erik and SHIELD, that Loki was the master of deception. She had just naively thought he might spare his rescuer from his tricks. The anger at his underestimating her intelligence, the embarrassment she felt at falling for it and at her innocence gave her the courage to pluck together her nerves. She pushed out at the spectre's chest with both hands and it faded in a swirl of green and black, leaving a now-visible Loki panting and glowering at her from the couch. Where he had lain all along.

"Smoke and mirrors won't fool me." She pushed up from her chair, those scant few bites of egg sitting like a leaden lump in her stomach, and clenched her trembling fists at her side. She would be damned before she let him see how much he had scared her. "You can't control me, and I refuse to be intimidated by you. Like it or not, I'm your meal ticket here." She tilted her chin defiantly and spun on one heel, the skin on her back crawling as she strode away as if expecting a knife at any moment. Snatching her purse and keys from the counter, she narrowed her eyes at his prone figure. "I'm going to town for groceries. Try not to break anything while I'm gone, please."


	3. Chapter 3 - A New Resolution

She was gone for some time, long enough that Loki began to wonder if she was returning at all. Squares of sunlight from the windows crept slowly across the floor and walls as he sat on the floor beside the empty fireplace and scraped together magic to heal himself, one wisp at a time. As he labored to stitch muscle and vein together again, he turned the problem of Jane Foster over and over in his mind.

Try as he might, he couldn't seem to find what it was about her that had appealed to Thor so much. She was pleasing enough to look at in her own way, but compared to an Asgardian woman like Sif, Jane Foster seemed so...underwhelming. Small and inconsequential. Hardly capable of instigating such monumental change in Thor. She was a puzzle, a tangle to unravel, but Loki had no idea which thread to tug first.

He chafed at the thought of being subject to her goodwill, at depending upon her better nature to keep himself safe. It would have been better if he had been able to inspire her fear, but while she had seemed upset by his temper earlier she had hardly come away from it cowed. Loki frowned and tucked a stray piece of hair behind his ear before he bowed his head and trailed fingers over the tear in his sleeve, ragged edges melding together behind them. He wondered what could be done to bring Jane under his thumb.

He did so prefer his humans docile.

But perhaps he had gone about it all wrong from the beginning. He had always assumed that humans would respond best to power. They had proven all along by their own histories that tyranny and obeisance were their natural states. But maybe...on an individual basis...it was indeed better to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. Anticipation curled warmly in his belly, and a tiny smile graced his lips.

They did not call him silvertongued for nothing. This would be child's play.

A renewed sense of purpose and the sound of a vehicle in the drive brought him to his feet, shaking out his robes and cape, now spotless and whole. The food and rest had gone a long way towards invigorating him, although he was still far from recovered. The crude sling Jane had fashioned for him was still regrettably necessary as his bones continued to slowly knit, but it certainly ruined the line of his clothing and figure. Small evils, perhaps. Jane might respond better if she thought him still a wounded creature, some stray she had brought home.

As keys rattled at the lock, an eager grin spread on his face and he smoothed a few stray strands of hair back neatly in preparation of his gambit.

* * *

Jane frowned as she fumbled her way through the collection of locks and deadbolts SHIELD had felt necessary to put on the door of her lab, finally pressing one thumb to the biometric lock and hearing the clunk of tumblers turning inside the thick steel slab. Bending to pick up the sacks of groceries she'd set at her feet, Jane turned back and bumped the door open with one hip, keys dangling from her mouth.

When she stepped into the living room, those same keys fell in a clatter on the floor from her slack jaw.

She'd expected to see Loki in about the same place she'd left him, convalescing on the couch. Instead he was standing, his posture regal and elegant. The dirt and blood that had marred his clothing before was gone, leaving behind supple leather that gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Green and gold bisected the dark material, so bright and saturated with color it nearly hurt her eyes. His face was still pale and drawn, but it was the normal pallor of fatigue - not the sallow gaunt cast to his skin that she had seen on the news, a face that had flickered with manic intensity as if some fire ate him up from within. His glossy hair was a black so deep it bordered on blue, the cold color of space where it bordered the stars. He didn't take up all the air in a room the way Thor had, with his broad shoulders and vibrant fiery presence. Loki's was the trim physique of a swimmer, the lithe coiled finesse of a viper before the strike.

"Miss Foster," he said with a gentle incline of his head, measuring out the space between them with graceful gliding steps. "Allow me." He reached for the bags with his good arm and snagged them all from her nerveless hand, looping long thin fingers through the handles and walking towards her kitchen. Jane blinked and followed behind, still stunned.

Evil he might be, but he certainly cleaned up well.

He set the bags atop her small counter beside the sink and turned back to face her, his features pinched with consternation. "I fear that I owe you an apology, Miss Foster. My temper can run away with me, at times." His skin was cool and dry against her own suddenly clammy palm as he slipped his hand beneath hers, sketching a cultured bow over their mingled grip until his forehead touched softly against the back of her hand. Lifting his head to meet her gaze, his wide green eyes held her own effortlessly. "Forgive me."

Jane's brain stuttered as she smothered nervous laughter, and she gave herself a mental shake. She wasn't some silly little girl to turn into a giggling idiot every time a man used some pretty manners around her. All the fine graces in the world couldn't mask the fact that Loki was dangerous, and she would be stupid to forget that.

She untangled her fingers from his and blew out a short breath, breaking away from his stare. "I'm not a doormat that you can walk all over. Find some better way to work out your anger, ok?"

Loki straightened and blinked pensively at her for a moment before nodding slowly. "Understood."

He began rummaging through the grocery sacks, pulling out items at random and examining them curiously. Jane picked them up as he set them down and put them away, her movements practiced and thoughtless. It was a new building but SHEILD had arranged the kitchen very similar to her old one. Before long Loki ceased his poking and leaned back against the counter, eyes tracking her as she wove about the kitchen.

"By all rights, I should have died yesterday, Miss Foster," came his silken voice in the silence as she was wrestling with a carton of milk, and Jane stood from her crouch before the half-sized fridge, still clutching the door for balance. The small appliance only came up to her waist and he had sidled over to stand beside it, his upper body canting gently in her direction over the door that divided them. The cool air of the open fridge as it washed over the backs of her legs was a counterpoint to the flush that heated her face as his nimble fingers tucked a loose hank of her hair back behind one ear. Loki braced one hand atop the ajar door beside hers and leaned further, pale green eyes filling her vision. "I can be quite generous to those who hold my favor," he murmured. "One might even say friendly."

"I...I'm sure," she stammered as she backpedaled furiously, heedless of the fridge left hanging open as she put distance between them. Apprehension skated up her spine as he carefully shut the fridge and stalked towards her with the boneless grace of a hunting cat. Jane put her hands up as if to ward him off. "Don't take it the wrong way but...we're not friends. And there's really only one Asgardian I'm interested in being favored by."

Like a switch had flipped, his languid air was instantly charged with disgust and his lips curled down into an ugly tangle. "Loyalty to Thor?" He raised one brow and when he continued his voice was dripping with mockery. "That is very endearing. Like a faithful dog, you wait for your master to throw you some scraps. But tell me, why did he not come to you while he was here?" He shook his head slowly, as if she was something to be pitied. "Do you believe that Asgard's shining son lacks for companionship back home?"

Loki's words were a prod to the black worms of doubt that had crawled in her heart since the day Thor left but Jane held her gaze steady on his own narrowed eyes, fearful that any movement would let the tears that filled hers spill over. She knew that Thor must have had his reasons for not visiting her, and she had faith in him. But to hear it so plainly from another's mouth...it was almost too much to bear.

"You're petty, and a bully," she bit out around the shards of disappointment that tangled in her throat. Her chin trembled but she straightened her back and glared back at him. "You can crush people like a spoiled boy does his toys, but that doesn't make you any _better_ than us." She gathered the remnants of her dignity into a shield of false bravado and raked a derisive glance over Loki from head to toe. "I feel sorry for you. If this is how you treat everyone you must have been a lonely child."

He looked stunned, as if her words had been an actual slap across the face. Her heart squeezed out a few thundering beats before fury clouded on his brow as he seemed to hunch into himself, looking for all the world like a cat that had just been splashed with water. "You would hold your tongue, if you knew what was best for you!" he hissed. "Tell me, what does Jane Foster - adored by Erik Selvig and Thor - know about being _alone_?" The last word came out sharper than a dagger as he pulled his hand back, and for one breathless moment Jane was sure he would strike her. She closed her eyes and braced herself for a blow that never fell, and when she opened them again she was alone, her rasping breath the only sound that echoed through the empty kitchen.

Sighing softly, Jane wiped the moisture that clung to her lashes away with a trembling hand. She was beginning to have serious doubts about the whole situation. She had no idea why she had ever thought that Loki could be bargained with, or expected to act reasonable. If she failed at this though, if she let this opportunity slip away...she could possibly be throwing away any chance at seeing Thor again. She had to find some way to tolerate this, until she found what she needed and she could turn Loki over to SHIELD.

And she had to remember not to mention Thor.

* * *

Loki had never been one to pace while thinking. The less his body was in motion the more furiously his mind was working, piecing together and discarding schemes in the time between one blink and the next. He'd managed to leave the lab before he'd been tempted to remove Jane's head from her shoulders, but just barely - twisting a handful of reality and taking that odd step sideways through space he'd been born knowing how to do, reappearing on the flat concrete roof. The sun pounding down mercilessly on his head and shoulders was a young star far hotter than the one that shone over Asgard, fiery and tempestuous and volatile. Much like Earth, in a way. He could see why it would appeal to Thor.

He sat in the angular shade of the gleaming panels that sprouted from the roof to tilt toward the sun like great blue cornflowers, and pondered the problem of Jane.

He wanted to blame her for everything going awry, but he knew it had been he that had sent it all sideways. He and his fits of pique. She got under his skin, stood before him and said brutally honest things through the thick mask of her fear no matter how badly her courage wavered. He terrified her, it was true, but she had a strange sort of bravery mingled with the surety of a martyr. He could do what he would to her, but it would not break her will.

But then, what did he expect when he came at her with strongarm tactics better suited to the louts he'd left behind in Asgard? Thus far, he'd offered her a choice between violence and veiled insults. When had he lost his finesse, his subtlety? Perhaps that alien consciousness that had clung like a burr inside his own skull had ruined everything he was, whipped him to action only to leave him burned out and clumsy like a winded horse.

What he needed was the long game. A match of wits, a con of epic proportions to show that he still had the touch. And as he fanned long fingers over the warm concrete to block the plodding path of an ant, it came to him. A challenge, but the payoff would be worth its weight in gold, for it came with the shining prize - revenge on Thor.

_He __would __win __Jane__'__s __heart__._

He would befriend her, ease the solitude she wore like a heavy cloak. Not all at once - she was too canny to fall for that, the incident in the kitchen had proven as much. It had to seem natural, a gradual reformation that would appeal to her better nature. Like the slow spread of poison, she wouldn't notice until it was too late.

And when she'd forgotten about Thor, when he'd softly filled the spaces in Jane's life and thoughts that his brother had once occupied, when he had her eating out of his hand - he would spring the trap. He would bring her before his brother and drink in the sweet taste of Thor's despair as she chose him, and then hers as he ground her beneath his heel.

It would be a lovely diversion. Just the thought of it brought a grin of delight to his face.

* * *

She was in the midst of transcribing last week's star charts into her computer models when he reappeared, seated in place on the couch as if he'd never left it. She wasn't able to smother her yelp of surprise completely, and he glanced askance at the strangled sound. Wherever he'd gone it had done him some good - his face was still the pale shade she suspected was just its natural state, but there was some color back in his cheeks. She turned back to the faint glow of her computer and stared resolutely at the data before her as her fingers clacked away on the keyboard. If there was anything to be said, it would have to be by him - she'd said her piece already.

His upper body was hidden by the rectangle of her monitor but she could see from the corner of her eye his long legs cross and uncross restlessly, foot bouncing impatiently. Jane smothered a petty smile at the sight. It seemed the resident Asgardian did not like being ignored.

"Miss Foster," came the eventual call, just as she was slipping back into the rhythm of data entry, and Jane scowled at the interruption. Not that she should be doing this in the first place...she really needed to review some of those applications for a research assistant. Solo work had its advantages, but efficiency was not one of them.

"Yes?" she sighed as she wrapped up the string of numbers she was working on and wheeled her chair to one side, a length of table covered in equipment still between herself and the living area. It was ridiculous and all in her head, but it made her feel safer somehow.

He seemed to pick up on her discomfort, because he remained seated on the couch, the turn of his head his only motion. "We are both in situations that are...less than ideal," he said quietly with a pensive frown creasing his forehead. "But that is no excuse for me to let my anger out on you." His eyes darted to one side and back as he drew a deep breath. "I apologize."

Jane lifted both her brows, and her voice was brimming with skepticism. "Do you really? Because we just did this, and it didn't seem to end all that well."

Loki's nostrils flared slightly and she could see a muscle tic in his jaw, as if he was biting back words he'd thought better of saying. "Yes. My behavior was boorish and unbecoming. I cannot promise that I will never become frustrated with this turn of events, but I will try not to take it out on you."

Jane was silent as she turned his contrition over in her head, wondering if there was another subtle game he was playing here. He seemed merely uncomfortable though, fidgeting restlessly as her silence dragged on. Eventually she nodded, content with his apology. She could drive herself mad trying to second-guess his motives, or she could simply take it at face value and keep her guard up. He could decide he was well enough to leave any day though, if his current rate of progress was any indication. She had to get what she could out of him, and she didn't have time for dramatics.

"Ok," she conceded, and some indistinct tension seemed to drain from his body. An uneasy truce, she supposed, was better than constant warfare.

The deepening orange glow that trickled through the tall windows told her how much of the afternoon she'd lost. She must have worked straight through lunch - again. With a stretch Jane stood from her chair and rubbed at the tight muscles of her neck, glancing sidelong at Loki. "Are you hungry?"

He surprised her by shaking his head. Jane shrugged and started for the kitchen. "Suit yourself. I am though."

A few minutes of rummaging and a few more in front of her tiny stovetop yielded a huge bowl of spaghetti that she dug into even before sitting down at her small bistro-sized table. It wasn't exactly gourmet but it was certainly less embarrassing than microwaving some frozen entree - her usual dinner more often than not. Pulling her latest copy of The Astrophysical Journal from a dog-eared stack that leaned precariously at the edge of her table, Jane turned to the folded corner where she'd marked her last page read and became absorbed in her colleague's work.

"Do you ever rest?" came Loki's voice from the seat across the table. Jane's fork fell from lax fingers to clatter in the nearly empty bowl, her heart sputtering. It was bad enough that she had grown so used to her solitude she forgot others might be around. Now she had to share her space with someone who could literally appear out of thin air.

"Yes," Jane said quickly, feeling a bit defensive. "But this is my hobby, just as much as it is work."

Loki's face was a blank mask as he stared at her for the space of several breaths, and Jane fought the urge to squirm under his measuring gaze. "This really is very important to you, isn't it?" he asked finally, sounding vaguely perplexed.

Jane ducked her head and took her fork in hand, toying with the few strands of pasta left in her bowl. "Traveling to other worlds has been my dream since I was a child. I was never really interested in anything else." She didn't need to add that her interest had grown significantly in the past few months, it was there in the tiny moue of displeasure that crept onto his face.

"You never played with...dolls, or made flower garlands, or embroidered? Whatever it is young girls do in Midgard?"

Jane choked on a laugh. "Hardly. Other girls were reading books about horses and babysitting, while I was poring over star charts on my father's lap."

An oddly tangible silence stretched between them before Loki shifted in his seat. "You are a strange woman, Jane Foster," he said with a frown in his voice.

A smile tightened painfully on Jane's face as she carefully replaced the journal atop its companions, hearing that same sentiment echoing in a thousand variations down the hallways of her memory. "Yes, well...you're not the first to say that." Clearing her throat she stood and carried her bowl to the small sink, rinsing it out and watching the red-stained water swirl down the drain. How embarrassing, really. To be so abnormal that even an alien, someone who should _expect_ her to be odd, felt the need to comment on it.

"I have upset you."

Jane stirred from her thoughts and smoothed the melancholy from her features before turning back to the table. Loki was eyeing her curiously, but with no real compassion - as if she were a test to be observed, a butterfly on a pin behind a pane of glass. She plastered on a small smile and shook her head. "No, it's ok." Drying her damp hands on a nearby towel, she worried the fabric between her fingers a few times before tucking a piece of hair behind her ear nervously. "I think I will try to get some sleep. I didn't get much last night."

Loki stood and nodded. "Of course."

"I have more blankets, if you think you will get chilly," she offered, but he cut her off with a shake of the head.

"I will be fine." A strange wry smile twisted his lips. "The cold does not seem to bother me much."

"Right," she said, to fill the silence more than anything else. She headed towards her room, flicking off the overhead lights as she went. When she reached for the doorknob, something made her turn to look back. In the fading daylight Loki still stood where she had left him, one hand resting atop the table and his face cast in shadow. She couldn't read his expression or see the direction he looked, but she felt his gaze like a hand on her shoulder. "Goodnight," she called softly, and his dark head bowed a fraction.

"Goodnight, Miss Foster."

She was sure it was only fatigue that made him sound so adrift.


	4. Chapter 4 - A Fresh Perspective

_Sorry __this __one __took __a __couple of __days __longer __to __post__, __the __holiday __weekend __kept __me __busy__. __Enjoy__!_

_(__Also__, __I __do __not __proclaim __to __be __an __expert __at __physics __in __any __way__, __shape__, __or __form__. __Take __this __chapter __with __a __grain __of __salt__, __and __that __in __mind__. 3)_

_Song __of __the __chapter__: __Myth__, __by __Beach __House_

* * *

She woke too early again after a night of restless sleep, sheets and blankets tangled around her sweaty limbs as the wisps of her unsettling dreams lingered. They were burning off rapidly in the pale morning sunlight, leaving little more than a vague sense of dread sitting like a stone atop her chest. Struggling upright Jane shook off the matted bedclothes and sat at the edge of her mattress, head bowed in both hands as she tried to recall something of what had disturbed her sleep the night before.

_Blinding __agony __that __splintered __in __her __chest __like __a __shattered __icicle__._

_The __lined __face __of __an __old __man__, __one __eye __covered __with __an __ornate __patch__, __the __other __staring __down __at __her __with __mingled __pity __and __sorrow__._

_Lacy __patterns __traced __on __a __delicately __frosted __window__._

_Snow __sifting __down __from __an __iron __sky __to __blanket __a __cholla __cactus__._

There was more but the tighter she tried to grasp the droplets of memory the faster they slipped away, until even those she still remembered were fuzzy and indistinct around the edges. With a huff of exasperation Jane combed fingers through her thick unruly hair, pushing the mass of it away from her face as she walked into the small bathroom and yanked the knobs of her shower.

She emerged from her room some time later, damp hair gathered into a sloppy bun and feeling much more grounded that she had upon rising. Loki was already awake, if he had slept at all - his tall figure a dark slash against the window he stared out of. His arm was free of the sling, although he still held it gingerly at his side. Outside of the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders he was motionless, not even turning as she called out a quiet hello.

She pushed a couple of Pop-Tarts into the toaster and poured herself a glass of juice, sipping it pensively as she stole furtive glances in his direction, as if she expected him to turn around and catch her in the act at any moment. She was halfway through her first pastry when he finally turned, his motions stiff as if he had forgotten how limbs were strung together.

"Do you want the other one?" she offered, pushing her plate across the counter. He just shook his head as he took in the brightly colored frosting and sprinkles.

"Is that food to break a fast, or dessert?" He asked, looking baffled.

Jane guiltily swallowed her mouthful. "Umm...both?" she said hopefully.

Loki just hummed deep in his throat with a disbelieving lift of his brows and swept past her into the kitchen, plucking an apple from the loaded bowl of fruit she had set out. He bit a perfect circle out of the crisp flesh and chewed pensively as he leaned against the counter opposite her. "I _would _take some of that coffee," he said, and Jane nodded eagerly before preparing a pot. Lord knew she could use some herself.

There was the crunch of another bite, and a moment of silence. "This is a very harsh land you live in, Miss Foster. Hot, and dry." Loki rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, as if some unreachable fly bit at his back. "I cannot say that I enjoy it."

"It's not exactly my favorite either," she said. "But if you want to see the stars you have to find somewhere remote, and here on Earth the only places left like that are extreme." She poured some of the coffee into her favorite mug, a battered white thing with the Drake equation printed on the side she'd picked up in graduate school somewhere. She filled another plain mug and held it out to Loki. "I spent some time in Norway as well, in Oslo and at the University of Tromsø. It's pretty extreme too, but I think I preferred it in some ways. At least the snow was prettier than the sand and rocks here."

His thin hand wrapped around the ceramic, heedless of the heat. "At home," he began, and then seemed to falter. He took a small sip of the heady brew and then cleared his throat. "On Asgard, the stars are always visible. During the day the strongest of them shine through the faint blue wash of the sky, like a tattered canopy spangled with sunlight. And if that constant reminder of the night isn't enough, you can walk to the edge of the world where the curtain of the sky is drawn back to show the cosmos in all its glittering glory, wheeling above and below you as if you stand inside a jewelbox."

Jane stared agape at Loki, transfixed by his words and the wistful cant of his head. It was the most she'd heard him say since she'd found him that hadn't been directed at her in anger, and the poetic turn of his words was a surprise. "It sounds beautiful." And then, before she had even had time for her brain to catch up to her mouth it went and pulled the tiger's tail. "Why did you leave?"

Her words fell in a heavy pile between them, like a cairn of stones. Jane felt as the blood left her face, and she set her mug down carefully beside her, her fight or flight instincts kicking in as Loki's face grew steadily darker. They'd been doing so well, too - almost having real conversations last night and this morning, until she'd just stuck her foot in her mouth.

"I-I'm sorry," she said hastily, her hands fluttering before her like wounded birds. "That was...I mean, I shouldn't have asked. It's really none of my business. I didn't mean to upset you," she finished lamely, and braced for the worst.

* * *

The spaces inside his mouth crowded with sharp words and phrases that jostled for supremacy. All it would take was a choice few of them and he could cut her down, put her back in her place. And it would only mean undoing any of the slight progress he'd made so far, breaking any chance of her ever trusting him.

So many things that wanted to be said, but what he managed to pluck from the jumble was a mollifying, "No, I suppose you didn't." With a shock, he realized it was true. The anger that had been building just moments before was snuffed, leaving him feeling hollow. He pasted a wan smile on his face and watched her blink in surprise, then slowly pick her coffee back up.

"So," he said finally, searching for a change of subject. "You wish to pick my brain, Miss Foster?"

And with that, whatever wariness of Jane's that had lingered dissipated in a heartbeat as her eyes widened over the rim of her mug at him. She choked down her sip of coffee and nodded eagerly. "Yes!" Bustling over to her cluttered workstation Jane sifted through piles. "Just a second," she said, hands frantically roaming the desk. "My notebook is around here somewhere...aha!" Triumphantly she held up a battered red book and bounced over to the seating area to sprawl into the armchair. She flipped to an open page and began chewing on the end of her pencil as he settled himself on the couch nearby.

"So the Bifrost is broken, and yet you still managed to travel here to earth, without the use of the relic that SHIELD had." She fixed him with an intent gaze and leaned forward in her seat. "I want to know how. Can you travel between any of the realms? Is there a limit on how far you can go? How many people can you take with you?" Her questions came rapid fire, and Loki held up his hands in surrender.

"One question at a time if you please, Miss Foster," he said, and her face drooped in consternation.

"Sorry," she grimaced, her shoulders lifting as she pulled in a deep breath and composed herself.

Loki tapped his lips with one long finger as he tried to think of where to begin. "As best I can tell, there is no limit on where or how far I can go." Her last question gave him pause, and he tried to recall if he ever had brought anyone into the spaces between with him other than Thor. "I've pulled one person through with me before, but never any more than that. And as for the how?" He broke off and shot Jane a tiny secretive smile as he held up one hand and melded skill and energy, his will becoming manifest in his palm. There was no fanfare - a copy of the small sparrows he'd seen outside her window simply appeared in his hand, as if it had been there all along. "Magic, Miss Foster."

Jane's gasped as he sent the bird winging in her direction to land on the edge of her notebook, tiny orange talons digging into the dog-eared pages. It sat there, preening and warbling up at her as Jane's eyes grew larger and larger. "What? How did you..." she said, tearing her gaze away from the songbird to blink at him in astonishment. "You shouldn't be able to do that."

He did laugh then, an odd sensation in his chest like the squeaking hinge of a door shut too long. Her amazement was priceless though, and it never ceased to amuse him how easily baffled mortals were. "I suppose I haven't, technically. It's only an illusion. But if I had more strength, it could be real."

Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she worked up the courage to reach a hesitant hand out to the sparrow. Her fingers passed through the image, but this time he was strong enough to keep it from fading away. Still passing her hand back and forth through the image, she frowned up at him. "How would that work?" she finally said, frustration plain in her voice. "You can't just...create something from nothing. It violates every principle of physics known!"

Loki folded his arms across his chest as he sat back on the couch, mindful of his tender side. "When I conjure something, I am not simply causing things to appear. It is more like stealing bits of this and bits of that and combining them into what I want."

"Some kind of nucleosynthesis, perhaps." She muttered this in a low voice to herself, one hand still absently poking at the drab brown and grey plumage of the bird. He extended one hand and the small bird collapsed in on itself in a wisp of gold and green, eliciting a small squeak of surprise from her.

Loki shrugged. "That term means nothing to me. I don't know exactly how it works, Miss Foster...only that it does. And when I want to travel from one place to another, I just fold the distance between them and poke a hole where they meet."

She nodded furiously at this, excitement blazing in her eyes. "Yes, yes! A wormhole, an Einstein-Rosen Bridge! Just like the Bifrost, but on a smaller scale. But then...how do you keep it from collapsing? How do you avoid the singularity?"

If he was honest with himself, her interest was flattering. There had been no one in Asgard curious enough to find out the intricacies of how his magic worked - even his 'parents' had accepted it with little more than a shrug...although in light of what he knew now, their reaction seemed less surprising. His magic had been an anomaly because _he_ was an anomaly, a curiosity that earned only scorn and derision from more those with more bellicose tastes.

"To keep it from falling in, you need something pushing out," he said, illustrating his words with his hands. "I alter the nature of the universe to be more contrary and use it to shore up my tunnel." An ironic smile unfurled. "Whatever that says about myself."

"Contrary nature? I'm not sure I follow." Jane puzzled over this for some minutes. He could practically see the gears and wheels inside her head spinning as she frowned down at her now unoccupied page, scribbling out frantic notes and strings of numbers.

"I don't know how to put it any plainer than that for you. It is the opposite of expected, you push and it pushes back." He frowned, searching his memory for some way to make it plainer. "There aren't a lot of terms for what I do. So far I'm the only person who can do this, that I know of, although I'm sure there must be more out there. Someone built the Bifrost, after all."

"I understand," she said, waving one hand at him absently as she continued working, murmuring to herself, and Loki couldn't help but feel vaguely insulted as she proceeded to ignore him for the next few minutes.

When she did finally lay her pencil down and raise her face to look at him, it was with the stunned wide-eyed gaze of a startled deer. "You're talking about exotic matter." She leaned forward and the look on her face grew greedy. "_Negative __mass__._ You can...create, summon, conjure, whatever crazy magic word you want to use for it...matter with _negative __mass_."

"I suppose you could call it that."

Jane fell back in her chair, her limbs going slack like a marionette with its strings cut as she blinked off into space. "I think I might faint."

She really did look unwell, he noticed with a frown. Loki stood from his seat and strode to the kitchen, pulling a glass from the cupboard he'd seen Jane use and lifting the handle above the sink, filling it with cool water. He brought it back and pressed it into her limp hand, her thin fingers soft beneath his own. "Please, take a drink Miss Foster. I don't relish the idea of dealing with an unconscious woman."

She lifted it and drained the whole thing in one long pull, still looking dazed but at least her skin was no longer the color of eggshells. Sitting up she placed one hand to her forehead and then shot him an unsteady smile. "I'm sorry. It's just...if you're saying what I _think_ you're saying, it's like I've just found the Holy Grail of physics."

Loki knew his face was blank, her odd phrase having no meaning to him. Jane shook her head, a hesitant smile creeping onto her face. "You have no idea what I'm talking about. Let's just say, it's a really big deal to science."

"If you say so," he said, unconvinced. It seemed quite simple to him.

Tapping the end of her pencil against her chin, Jane eyed him thoughtfully. "Do you think that you could bring some of that..._contrariness_...here?"

"To Midgard?" He was startled at the prospect, and then thoughtful. He'd only ever created those strange dissident bits in the process of traveling, far away from anything else, and while he hadn't experimented much with them he got the impression they weren't easy to work with. "No, I don't think that would work well. It...doesn't play nice with much else." He spread his hands in apology, unsure of how to make it any clearer.

"What if we had something to contain it?" Jane leapt to her feet, dumping the notebook onto the floor heedlessly and throwing herself into the chair at her desk, fingers flying over the keyboard. Her eyes swept back and forth across the monitor and then swung further to look in his direction, enthusiasm lending their deep brown a sparkle. "Would you then?"

"If that is what you wish, Miss Foster," he said smoothly, offering her a slow smile as satisfaction curled warmly in his belly. As long as she needed what only he could provide, this was his game to lose.

* * *

They circled each other around the small space of her lab in a sort of wary détente over the next few days. It wasn't exactly peace, and it wasn't exactly war, but it worked for them. Jane spent most of her time poring over formulas and typing at her computer from what he could tell - breaking occasionally to shovel some food in her mouth, Loki sticking mostly to the occasional fruit or vegetable. Most of what she ate was full of salt or sugar or some other strange chemicals he swore he could taste over the seasonings, and it wasn't as if he needed much to keep from starving anyways. Asgardians were far hardier folk than those of Midgard.

It was boring at times, but he felt a strange peace in this isolated place. There was little to distract the mind here and he found the blandness of it comforting, like closing one's eyes against bright light when a headache pounded. There was solace in the gentle breeze that soughed dryly over his face as he sat in the shade on Jane's roof, and in the still soundless expanse of sand and rock. The desert was an endless stretch of brown flecked with the occasional drab green that spread in all directions until it faded into the shivering horizon, broken about the edges by ragged mountains.

There wasn't much in the way of animals to distract the eye either. Sparrows like the one he'd conjured before flitted from one scraggly cactus to another, their liquid burbling songs the only thing remotely like water in this inhospitable place. Sometimes if he held still long enough he'd catch sight of a lizard as it scurried from one rock to another, the only creatures that seemed to actually enjoy the blistering sunlight. He supposed most things around here came out at night, when it was cooler. He couldn't blame them. He preferred the soft wash of starlight over the harsh sun as well.

His wounds were nearly healed by this point, his strength returning in fits and spurts that seemed to last longer every day. It seemed as if he had been drained by far more than just bruises and breaks, as if he was having to reknit the very marrow that filled his bones. Not for the first time, far removed from the moment he'd cheerfully sold his soul to The Other, he wondered exactly what currency his power had been bought with.

On the fifth day, he stretched languidly on the couch and fiddled with the buttons on a device he'd seen Jane use on occasion, the one that made moving pictures appear within the frame she called a TV that was hung on one wall. She was somewhere behind him, the clicking of her keyboard giving away her presence and he ground his teeth at the irritating little sound. It occupied all her time and attention, and if he admitted it, he was tired of being ignored.

The black rectangle flickered to life with those vibrant crisp images that fascinated him. There were some dramas, vaguely enough like plays back home to be entertaining. Sometimes there were merchants, peddling wares. He sat, heavy-lidded with boredom through a few minutes of these until something else came on, something that had him sitting up and paying earnest attention.

A man and woman were discussing what seemed to be current events, and it seemed as if every other picture shown was filled with grim faced men toting weapons or news of some pending conflict.

"I would have saved humans all from this, you know," he said, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard by Jane across the lab in an unsubtle attempt to goad some reaction out of her.

She lifted her head and squinted across the room, rubbing wearily at her eyes. "From what?" she said, the frown plain in her voice even if her face was indistinct.

Loki waved a hand at the television and swung his legs around to perch at the edge of the cushions. "This. Your self-destructive tendencies. The blind worship of science and progress. Neither of these things do you any favors."

Jane's brows pinched together and she rose from her desk, walking closer to peer at the TV and then at him, aghast. "How can you say that? Science has done so much for humanity! It has cured disease and ended famine, shown us places and things we would never have seen otherwise."

"And it brings brought you death and devastation, misery and horror as well. I have seen what your science brings you, Miss Foster, and it is not the grand and glorious thing you imagine it to be." He slashed a hand in the air between them as she folded her arms and pinned him with a stubborn glare. "Humans swing back and forth wildly between the best and worst of yourselves with no accountability for their actions because you are the universe's equivalent of a mayfly. You scramble over the tops of each other toward what you think are shining heights, but you never have to deal with the consequences. You die before the ramifications of your actions are felt, and you are _all __the __worse __for __it__._ You have all the power of your fierce intellects, but none of the responsibility you should."

"Is this why you tried to set yourself up as king here?" she asked in an incredulous voice, her brows winging upwards. "Because you see us as some sort of...children, in need of babysitting?"

"Of course," he said simply with a nod. "You need a...moderating hand. A constant influence, to guide and shape your future. You bow and scrape before these strange metal gods of technology, these bits of plastic and silica, thinking they will save you and your planet. But they care nothing for you. _I _would not have been so indifferent."

She was silent some moments, as if considering his words. When she did finally look at him her eyes were hot and accusing, her mouth twisted bitterly. "And all those people that died? Is that how you show you care?"

He found he couldn't hold her gaze. "Those deaths were...regrettable." His own chin set stubbornly as he continued. "But necessary."

Her mouth dropped open. "Necessary," she echoed flatly, her eyes narrowing at him venomously. Loki wondered where the woman who had cowered in terror at his temper had disappeared to, for this Jane hardly seemed concerned about his reaction as she railed on, livid in her righteousness. "Necessary for your grand plan? The one you tried to impose on us, unasked for? The end does not justify the means, you know. You have no right to sacrifice anyone for your greater purpose! That doesn't make you a god, or a savior. That just makes you a monster."

His heart did a strange flop at her bald words, listing in his chest like a ship taking on water. His fingers moved restlessly in his lap, lacing and unlacing of their own accord as he heard the doubts that had steadily been gnawing at him echoed in her sentiments. When _had_ it all gone so wrong? He'd come here thinking...thinking _what_? That he could show up and appoint himself a god, that here on Midgard he could be the hero that Asgard would never let him be? He couldn't even seem to keep it straight himself anymore, memory and intentions all swirling together like an ominous flock of crows. He tried to force a reply to his lips, but for once in his life words failed him. He bowed his head and stared blankly at the floor between his boots, trying to put his thoughts into some semblance of order.

A pair of shoes crept into his field of vision, followed by Jane's face as she crouched down between his knees. He had no idea how long he'd been silent, but judging from the faint crease of worry that marred her brow it had been a while.

"Hey," she said softly, placing a careful hand on his knee as her brown eyes searched his own warily. "I...probably could have said that better."

His eyes were drawn to the sight of her slender fingers, steady and stark and frail against the somber hues he wore. She could have beaten about the bush, but what purpose would that have solved for either of them? He'd been wrong, and she was brave enough to call him on it, even at risk to herself. To hold it against her would be to perpetuate the lie he'd been telling himself since before he'd fallen from the Bifrost the first time, and the thought of that was too ironic for even he to stomach.

_Monster__. _

Was it possible to run so far and so hard from something that you ended up right back where you began?

"You have done nothing worse than offer honesty to the liar, Miss Foster." His voice when he found it sounded hollow and worn, the words scraped thin. The following smile felt even more fragile. "I suppose even I can appreciate that."

Surprise softened her mouth when he placed his hand atop hers and squeezed her fingers gently before rising to stare out at the endless, alien desert.


	5. Chapter 5 - A Revelation of Sorts

_A __little __lighter __of __a __chapter__. __Hope __you still __enjoy__._

_Song __of __the __Chapter__: __Me __and __the __Devil__, __by__Soap__&__Skin_

* * *

Jane thought she might be going crazy.

There was no other explanation for the fact that she was worried about Loki. Ever since their conversation two days ago, he'd done little more than stand woodenly before the windows, his eyes listless and shuttered. Whatever progress he'd seemed to be making had stopped, shadows gouging deep circles beneath his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights.

It didn't seem right, having concern for someone that had had so little concern for her own people. Like sympathy for the devil, it felt misplaced. But then Jane remembered that whatever else he was, he was Thor's brother...and even Thor hadn't been able to condemn his sibling completely. If he had, he would have let SHIELD finish him off or lock him away somewhere, rather than try to take him home for punishment. If Thor could try to see some scrap worth redemption in Loki, then for his sake Jane would try as well.

What could she do though? She was no therapist. When he turned that empty gaze on her, she had no idea what could be said to bring him around. She half-wished for the snarling, wounded beast she had dragged home a week ago. Even blind hatred and anger would have been an improvement over the silent ghost that flitted about her lab now.

Over the top of her monitor his dark head was a splash of ink against the bright window, in the same place it had been since she'd started woken up that morning.

Jane lifted her head again and cleared her throat. "I'm going to town today," she said, but there was no indication he'd heard her at all.

Start with the small things, she reminded herself.

"Would you...like to come?" she asked, and held her breath in the long silence that followed.

Slowly, he turned to look at her. His brows were pinched together with confusion and his voice, when it came, was raspy with disuse. "You wish me to accompany you?"

Jane shrugged. "I thought you might like to get out of here. Have a change of scenery or something..." She trailed off as his gaze unfocused over her shoulder, and for more than a few long moments she thought he would say no. When he did finally turn that uncanny glacial gaze back on her, she would still have been hard-pressed to call it animated - but there was a certain light there that hadn't been before.

"I think I would like that," he said, as if the prospect surprised him, and Jane grinned.

"Let me just get my stuff," she mumbled, shutting her computer down and straightening her rumpled shirt as best she could. Glancing up at Loki, her hands stilled and consternation clouded her brow.

"What is it?" he asked suspiciously, taking in her frown.

He still wore the same leather and emerald tunic she'd found him in, heavy pants and boots encasing his slender legs. At first she'd thought he'd need a change of clothing, but day after day he appeared both as spotless and as fresh as the first morning after she'd left him. It must have been some ability, what he called magic. An ionic charge maybe? She'd have to ask sometime.

While she'd grown used to the sight of his unusual garb, she doubted the people of small-town Puente Antiguo would find it nearly as mundane. She didn't even have anything around that he could change into, no old clothing of Erik's or a former boyfriend. She'd given all those to Thor, a fact that probably didn't merit mentioning to Loki.

She waved one hand up and down in his direction. "You don't exactly fit in, you know. I don't think I even have anything you could change into."

"Oh. Well, if that is all you are worried about..." The ghost of an impish grin flitted across his face as tendrils of gold and green seemed to coalesce out of thin air about him, brightening until Jane had to blink against the glare. When she opened her eyes again Loki looked nothing like the Asgardian she'd become used to seeing.

Gone was the tunic and leather, the heavy boots and all the swirling scrollwork. Instead he wore slim grey trousers over black dress shoes, with a crisp white shirt tucked in. The top couple buttons were undone in a nod to the warm weather, letting the collar gape open slightly, and the sleeves were folded back a few times to expose lean forearms. A black leather belt looped about his narrow hips finished off an outfit that looked straight out of some fashion spread photoshoot. He'd been looking through too many of her magazines, she suspected.

"Will this do?" His face was innocently blank, but smug laughter lurked in his words.

Jane just nodded slowly in chagrin. She'd thought to make him less obvious, and while he'd no longer be getting odd looks his choice of clothing was hardly de rigueur for this small town. Maybe she could tell people he was some European colleague, in New Mexico for research.

It wasn't as if half the town didn't think her strange anyways - living alone so far out here, and having had her old lab raided by scores of shady-looking men in dark suits.

She fumbled around for her purse and keys and headed for the door, feeling even more drab than usual with Loki-as-GQ-model ambling along behind her, hands stuffed casually in his pockets. The stifling air outside was like the blast of an open oven, a parched heat that would gleefully peel the skin from your bones if given the chance. As she threw the door of her van open and turned the engine over, cooler air immediately began to trickle from the vents and Jane was grateful that she'd been able to retire her old lunker. It would have taken her half the distance to town before that jalopy's air conditioning would have kicked in.

Loki circled to the other side and climbed in the passenger seat, folding his lean frame into the bucket seat as if he'd done it a million times and quietly copying her as she buckled her seat belt. He spent most of the half-hour drive to Puente Antiguo in silence, face rapt as he watched the scenery pass by outside.

Puente Antiguo's only supermarket sat in the middle of town, small by most standards but far larger than a town of this size would be able to support without the steady stream of tourists that passed through. Jane swung the van into the nearly empty lot and parked in a free spot, angling the van's impressive bulk carefully into the narrow space. Inside she snagged a basket and headed in the direction of the produce, having noticed Loki's predilection for fresh food.

She turned to find him a few paces behind her, eyes sweeping from one side of the aisle to another as if the busy labels were an all out visual assault. "Pick anything you want," she said, at a bit of a loss when she realized she had no idea what would appeal to him. Thor had eaten just about anything put in front of him, but Loki seemed far more discerning.

Warily he poked a finger at a carton of cookies on the shelf, one brow lifting with disdain as he tilted his head to read the contents. "How do you even pronounce half of these ingredients?" he asked, exasperated. "Let alone eat it."

Jane placed a few cans of soup in her basket and avoided his eyes. It would sound pathetic if she admitted it - that she didn't bother cooking much because it was depressing when you were the only one eating it. She'd gone straight from college to graduate school, and from there to intense research. She'd never really had the motive or opportunity to learn much in the way of culinary skills.

"It is pretty gross, I guess," she admitted, letting her fingers trail over boxes of flavored rice as she walked past, choosing one at random and adding it to her load. "I'm not much of a cook, to be honest."

Loki was silent some moments as he paced beside her, his face unreadable. "I suppose I'm not either," he allowed, and then slanted a wry look at her. "It was never a skill set expected of a prince."

Jane smiled at that. "No, I guess it wouldn't be."

It was odd, to be doing something as domestic and mundane as grocery shopping with Loki. But with him walking casually beside her, dressed in normal clothes, it almost seemed believable that he really might be some acquaintance of hers and not the half-mad deposed brother of an alien she had a crush on.

Of course, when she put it like that, any version that didn't have him frothing at the mouth sounded like an improvement.

"I know how to cook pineapple stir fry," she offered bravely on an impulse. Her mother hadn't been terribly domestic either, but she did have her signature dish. Jane had watched her make it a hundred times over the years, sitting in their brightly lit kitchen as a warm evening breeze drifted through the open windows, heavy with the scent of the pepperbushes that clustered about the base of the house. Her mother would chop meat and vegetables into chunks for stir frying, ready to be thrown in a skillet when her father finally came home for a bite to eat before heading back to the observatory. "If you'd like, I can make it."

"If it doesn't involve something that came from a can, a box, or your freezer then I am all for it," he said dryly, and then his frown softened. "It is kind of you to offer."

"It's no problem," Jane assured him, and turned to peruse the market's meager produce offerings. By some small miracle they actually had fresh pineapples that looked passably ripe, and Jane breathed deeply as she hefted each and inspected them, their sweet smell a comfort. Into her basket one went, along with some other vegetables and a bit of pork, until the basket was heavy enough to bow the flimsy plastic handles. Arm aching, she wished for the tenth time she'd just gotten a cart, but they were almost done. She could tough it out until they got to the checkstand.

"If I may," Loki's smooth voice cut into single-minded focus, and she was startled by the soft brush of his fingers as he pulled the loaded container from her grip effortlessly. He gestured with his free hand for her to lead the way, and Jane gave him a quick smile of thanks.

Her steps faltered the tiniest bit as they approached the front of the store where Puente Antiguo's resident busybody Jessica Davenport slumped boredly behind the checkout counter, thumbing idly through the latest celebrity gossip rag and twisting a lock of blonde hair between the scarlet-tipped fingers of her free hand. Of all the employees, why did it have to be the one that would ensure news of Jane's visitor had reached every person by the end of the day? Smothering a sigh, Jane squared her shoulders and marched up to Jessica's counter.

"Hello," Jane said with a tight smile, and Jessica's gaze flicked up from the magazine she'd been reading.

"Jane!" she cried with a warm grin, and shoved the glossy pages aside. "How have you been, sweetheart?" It was impossible to hate Jessica, even if she was everything Jane would never be, because she was simply that friendly to everyone. Loki drew up beside Jane and set their groceries atop the counter carefully, lean forearms cording with the weight. Jessica's perfectly-lined eyes widened as she gave him a once-over and she tossed her mane of carefully curled hair back behind one shoulder. "Well, _hello__..._" she purred at Loki, and Jane saw his lips twitch with amusement. "Who is this?" She turned a mockingly accusatory glare on Jane and put her hands on her hips, lips pursing in a pout. "You've been keeping secrets, haven't you Jane?"

Jane shot a look of helplessness at Loki. "Yes...I mean _no_. I mean - Jessica, this is Dr...Locke." Jane's hands fluttered about aimlessly as she stumbled through her lies. She'd never been any good at telling them. "He's visiting from...Oxford. To compare theories." It had to be the lamest explanation ever, but fortunately Jessica was paying Jane almost no attention at all. Loki had her hand trapped in his own and was pressing a delicate kiss to the back of it, while Jessica looked as if she was about to melt into a peroxide and Maybelline-stained puddle at his feet.

"A pleasure," he said softly as he met her agog stare, and Jessica honest-to-God giggled. Jane had to keep from rolling her eyes, and began plunking items from the basket onto the small counter. The sharp thunk of a glass jar being set down shook Jessica from her thrall and she pulled her hand away reluctantly, pink still coloring her cheeks.

"Yes," Jessica said hastily and began running items over the scanner, sneaking occasional glances up at Loki. "Are you in town for long, Dr. Locke?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not," he said mournfully, watching with fascination the procession of their groceries from basket, past scanner, and finally to bag. "Just until I've finished helping Jane with this project she's working on." His cultured accent was so out of place in this small town, and Jane could see Jessica practically hang on every word.

"That's a shame." Jessica frowned, and placed the last item into a bag, punching buttons on her register to ring up a total before turning a winning smile on Loki. "There's a little bar in town that's teaching some line dancing tonight. If you're interested in seeing some of the real West."

Jane fumbled in a purse that suddenly seemed cavernous, digging fruitlessly for her wallet and trying to dismiss the horrible images that sprang to mind at the thought of Loki set loose on Puente Antiguo. It would be like a fox in the henhouse - worse than when the Destroyer came. She was too busy trying to scramble for a reason he couldn't go to notice when he pulled a wallet from somewhere on his person and thumbed out a few crisp bills, handing them to Jessica.

"That's very kind of you," he said gently. "But Jane has promised to cook me a specialdinner this evening, and I'm really looking forward to it." Jane looked up at the suggestive tone of his words, one hand still stuffed inside her bag, and her face flamed. _Oh__God__._ It would be all over town by dinner that she was dating some foreigner, and she'd never hear the end of it. Loki snagged their bags with one hand and placed the other purposefully at the small of Jane's back, urging her in the direction of the door.

Jessica's mouth dropped open in a crimson display of shock before she recovered. "I see," she drawled, her gaze flickering between Jane's drab thrift-store cardigan and the hand on her back. Jane hadn't thought it possible for her face to get any hotter, but she was sure she'd spontaneously combust at any moment. "Goodbye then, Jane. It was nice to meet you, Dr. Locke."

"Likewise," he tossed over his shoulder at the bemused blonde, and Jane could only wave weakly as he herded her outside.

As they stepped through the sliding doors and away from Jessica's prying gaze, Loki let his hand drop. Did she only imagine reluctance in the slow slide of it across her hip? Still stunned by the whole scene she turned and shaded her eyes against the midday sun to peer up at his face as they trudged across the sticky blacktop. He glanced down at her, his strange ocean eyes sparkling with mischief and a barely suppressed grin hovering about his lips.

"I can't believe you just...do you _know_ what she'll be telling everyone?" Jane shook her head in dismay and pulled the keys from her pocket, stabbing at the button on the fob with an irritated jab. He'd be gone soon, but she'd be left here to deal with the fallout. It was bad enough that she was awkward and a perpetual stranger in this small town...now they'd have new fodder for gossip, and she'd be fending off questions about her visitor for ages. She yanked on the door of the van in a huff and angled herself to climb in, but it stopped after only a few inches.

"Jane."

She looked up to see Loki's hand braced against the door, keeping it from opening. The gap left wasn't large enough for her to wiggle through, and with a swallow she turned. Her nose nearly brushed against his chest, hemmed as she was into the narrow slice left between his body, the door, and the hard panel of the van. This close, the subtle scent of cedar rose from the crisp folds of his shirt and Jane found her eyes fixed on that smooth triangle of skin that peeked out from his open collar.

"Jane," he said again, more insistent this time, and she dragged her gaze upwards to meet his, irritation still simmering just below the surface.

He frowned down at her, lips pursed thoughtfully. "I'm sorry. I did not mean to cause you any hardship. You have been a more than gracious host, and I have repaid you poorly."

A slow breath puffed out between her lips, and she slid her eyes sideways to stare at his long fingers splayed out against the side of the van. How was she supposed to stay angry when he could charm the socks off a snake? It wasn't fair, not at all. Evil should look evil, _act_ evil. It didn't get to carry her groceries and flirt with her, and it certainly didn't get to turn puppy-dog eyes on her when it apologized.

"It's fine," she said reluctantly at last, and he nodded in satisfaction. Pulling her door open the rest of the way he held it for her, leaning against it while she climbed in and shoved the keys into the ignition.

"You do have to admit though, the look on her face was priceless," he said with a sly gleam in his eye, and Jane couldn't quite keep the smile off her face.

"I guess so," she allowed, and her smile grew as she shook her head. "That might be the first time I've ever seen Jessica speechless, actually."

His only answer was unfettered laughter, and Jane's breath caught in her throat at the sight. Had it really been only this morning that she'd been so worried he would never snap out of his funk? Lines fanned out from his eyes, testament that whatever had happened to him lately there had once been a time that Loki had smiled often, and freely. It was the sort of laugh that coaxed others to join in, one that transformed his face, and the joyful spectacle of it was like a punch to her stomach.

Dear God, he was beautiful.

He shut the door and loaded the bags in the back before climbing in beside her, and Jane could only stare straight ahead out the windshield all the long ride back with this new and uncomfortable knowledge sitting strangely beneath her breastbone.


	6. Chapter 6 - A Game With No Winner

_Quick Author's Note: Thank you to everyone for your lovely comments, and encouragement. I'm having a great deal of fun with this story, and I hope you all are as well. And if you feel, upon reading this chapter, concerned that things are moving too fast - just remember, we've still got a lot of road to cover before we reach this happily-ever-after. ;)_

_Song of the Chapter: Demons, by Imagine Dragons_

* * *

Dinner was a marked improvement over anything else he'd had to eat so far on Midgard, an amazing combination of sweetness, salt, and savory that had him going back for seconds. Jane had thanked him for his compliments, but she'd been quieter than even usual since that afternoon, her eyes often going distant as if she were turning some problem over in that quick mind of hers. He had a feeling that, if left to her own devices, she would quickly retreat behind the barrier of her work again and whatever progress he'd made that day towards earning her favor would be ruined unless he could come up with some way to keep her engaged.

He sat at the table still, hands folded across his full stomach as he leaned the chair back on two legs, watching her put the tiny kitchen back in order. Her petite frame was full of a shy sort of grace that he found pleasant to follow, like a doe weaving through the forest.

"Do you play any games?" he asked as finished her cleaning and poured herself a cup of coffee from the ever-present pot. "If I watch any more of the TV I just might scream." She glanced at him over the rim of her mug as she took a sip, a thoughtful crease between her brows.

"I don't know that I have any here." She shook her head ruefully and wrapped both hands about her steaming drink. "I used to play chess a lot, with my father. And with Erik. But the chess set was his, and it never made it to the new lab with me. Not that it's the sort of game you can play alone anyways." She took another slow sip, and then canted her head to one side. "I think that Darcy might have left a deck of cards in one of these boxes somewhere, though. Let me look."

She set her coffee on the counter and went to a pile of boxes and equipment that had been shunted into a corner of the lab, some still spilling wires and papers over their edges. A few minutes of rummaging saw her hand raise triumphantly, a small rectangular box clutched in her fist. Her hair and clothes were disheveled from the search when she took her seat at the table again, and a grin lingered in her chestnut eyes that was only squelched when she held the box up to her nose and took an experimental sniff. "Ugh...these smell like stale beer. I'm guessing Darcy used these for drinking games more than cribbage with her grandma," Jane said in mild disgust. "But it's all we've got to work with. Sorry."

Loki let his chair come to rest on the ground and plucked the stained box from her fingers to wrestled the stuck flap open, relieved to find that the cards inside seemed to have weathered the storm far better than their container. With practiced ease he began to flip through them, examining the pictures and numbers on each. Intricate black designs on the back, white faces with numbers and faces. They weren't quite what he was used to in Asgard, and there seemed to be far less of them, but the meanings and symbols weren't difficult to figure out. He began to shuffle the deck, clumsily at first because his fingers kept insisting the card should be larger, but they picked up the rhythm easily.

"Do you have anything in particular you'd like to play, Jane? I don't think any games of Asgard would translate to this deck very well, so you will have to teach me something." She'd seemed almost hypnotized by the endless cycle of cards as they flowed between his fingers, blinking up at his voice as if startled.

"Only children's games, for the most part," she said, turning her mug between her hands pensively before adding, "And poker. But that's a gambling game, and I haven't played it since college."

"A gambling game, you say?" Loki's attention was caught, and he sat up straighter. _Oh__yes__._ He'd always loved cards, and the games of chance that went along with them. Playing one with Jane could work well in his favor, if he baited the proper trap here. "I'm all ears."

"Well...first we'd need something for currency." Jane looked about as if at a loss before her eyes landed on a box of matches beside the unlit fireplace. She rose to retrieve it, opening the sliding compartment to spill a pile of matchsticks out on the tabletop. "We can use these for practice, until you learn the rules. Then we'll think of something else." She carefully divided up the pile between the two of them, and held her hand out for the deck.

There were many varieties of poker, she told him, but the one she showed him was something called five-card draw. It was similar enough to a game he'd learned at home that he picked it up quickly, his previously dwindling pile of matchsticks balancing back out. Jane played well, and had a good grasp of the odds behind every hand she drew, but her tells were like signal flares that Loki could see from miles away.

"Now then, Jane," he said as he shuffled the cards after losing the last hand, glancing between the designs flashing through his fingers and her triumphant face. "Do you care to make a _real_ wager?"

She hesitated a moment, and then started to rise. "I can see what I have in my purse. One second."

Loki chuckled, and set a halting hand on her arm as she passed. It wasn't even fair really...like fleecing a lamb. "No, no. Sit down Jane."

Confusion clouded her expression as she slowly lowered herself back into her seat. Loki placed the neat stack of cards in the center of the table and leaned forward on his elbows, fingers laced together beneath his chin as he locked gazes with her. "I am not interested in your money."

A wary light crept into her eyes, and she sat up straighter. "What do you want to bet, then?" she asked with a healthy dose of suspicion in her voice.

"Come now, Jane - matchsticks are so boring. And money is so bloodless. Surely we can come up with something more entertaining to wager." Loki drummed his fingers against the tabletop as if deep in thought, although he'd had this moment planned since she'd unearthed the deck of cards an hour ago. "Something of interest to each of us."

Jane just shifted uncomfortably in her seat and twisted her hands in her lap. "Nothing's really coming to mind."

Loki tilted his head and raised a finger. "How about this; for every hand you win, you get to ask me a question, and I will answer truthfully. Without repercussion." He saw a spark jump into her eyes at that, and knew that he'd chosen just the right bait to reel her in. There had been no way that Jane would turn down knowledge, a chance to answer to all the questions about Asgard or Thor that gnawed at her.

Then she picked up on the unfinished half of his offer, and her eyes narrowed at him. "And what if you win?"

"Ah," he said, and deliberately squared the deck between them before slanting a wolfish grin in her direction. "If I win, I get a kiss."

Her reaction was instant, shock stiffening her spine and shoulders as her mouth fell open to gape at him. Her eyes had gone so wide he could see the whites of them all around, and he chuckled as her throat worked soundlessly. "A what?" she finally managed, her voice gone to a squeak.

"A kiss," he repeated as he leaned back in his chair, the hint of a smile still curling his lips. "Surely you've given one of those away before. It's not as if you are some shy young maiden."

"Yes. I mean, no, but-" Her cheekbones took on a pink glow as she scowled at him. "That's none of your business."

"Look at you, full of prim and proper outrage!" He laughed, and her faint blush deepened into a full stain, her features taking on a mulish cast. "It's not as if I'm asking to take you to bed. Lighten up, Jane."

She glared up at him sullenly but he could see how she teetered on the edge of acquiescence. She wanted answers so badly, he could see the yearning in her eyes as plain as the nose on her face. "You're a...a..." Her hands opened and closed in her lap, as if she could pull the words she wanted right from the air. "A pig," she finally spat out.

He grinned at that, and crossed his arms. "Perhaps. But mostly I'm just curious. What is it about Jane Foster that so captivated Thor? Indulge me, Jane. And I will indulge you." Her shoulders slumped with resignation, and inwardly he crowed. He'd lain the snare, and she'd stepped right into it.

"I'll only play three hands," she declared.

He nodded and smothered a triumphant smile. "Fair enough. Perhaps you will even get lucky, and win all three."

She shot him a dark look before pulling her chair up to the table, a grim sort of acceptance on her face that told him she had little hope of that coming true. Loki reached for the deck that sat like a landmine between them, but Jane's hand darted in first to snatch it up. "There's no way I'm letting you deal," she said. "I wasn't born yesterday."

"Why Jane, I'm hurt. You don't trust me."

She eyed him warily as she shuffled the deck a couple more times. "I do. About as far as I can throw you."

A grin crept onto his face. He was content to let her cling to whatever security she could find. She'd never manage to win all three hands.

Jane's nimble fingers had some luck lurking in them, because she beat him easily in the first match. What he could only describe as a smirk curled her lips as she gathered the cards together into a neat pile and squared the corners.

"Ask away," he sighed, with a long-suffering wave of his hand. "I can see you're practically choking on the question." He braced himself for some probably tooth-achingly sentimental question about Thor.

Instead she drew out the silence, rising from her chair to refresh her drink from the carafe on the counter. She sat again and took a long sip, her brows furrowing as she seemed deep in thought. At long last she set the mug down and leaned her elbows on the table, pinning him with her coffee gaze. "How did you end up being adopted by Odin? I know what the myths say. But I want to hear the real version."

His stomach lurched strangely at her question, and he covered his surprise at her choice and his own odd reaction with a smirk. "You want to waste your question on something as boring as my past? I could describe to you what the death of a star looks like. Or how it feels to race against gravity as you rush through a gap between universes." He glanced up slyly, and arched a brow. "Or perhaps a time I embarrassed Thor."

She just shook her head firmly, and planted one chin in her hand expectantly. Loki let out a long breath and ran both hands over the fine wool of the trousers he still wore, the fabric cool and smooth beneath his clammy palms. Of all the things to ask, it had to be that. He scowled at the weave of his pants as if they were to blame for the situation, and the urge to lie danced like a mad itch beneath his skin. He'd do almost anything to avoid hashing this over with a _mortal__, _but he had a suspicion that a few crumbs of truth scattered here would do more towards winning her favor than any lie he could concoct. And if he gave her that small courtesy, perhaps she would return the favor.

"I was born Loki Laufeyson," he began, and even those few words sat bitterly like wormwood on his tongue. His stomach churned sourly with the effort of forcing himself to continue, to air out his very private shame. "Child of the Jotun king, Laufey, but too small for him to value. Not a proper frost giant at all. And so I was left to die, like the runt of the litter, in the chaos of war where Odin found me." The Allfather's pained face swam before his mind's eye, how he'd flinched from Loki's anger at uncovering the truth like it was a visceral thing. Lies were all Odin had ever spoken to Loki, so many layers that no one could find the bottom anymore. Was it any wonder that he was so adept at them? He'd been weaned on them, had them dripped into his mouth like mother's milk from birth. "He took me to Asgard - changed my appearance and raised Thor and I as brothers, never telling me the truth. All so he could use me, as some sort of...living bargaining chip, a tool to stave off war between the races." His lip curled with disgust - at Odin's clumsy machinations, and at himself, still stinging from the sharp fangs of betrayal that pierced his heart.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize..." Jane's voice was small in the silence that had mushroomed between them, barely a flicker of sound.

Loki pressed his mouth into a grim line and stared down at his hands, still and limp in his lap like broken white birds. He'd thought to herd Jane into a corner with his little games, but it would seem that thus far he'd only managed to maneuver himself. The thought of what else she might ask him, of what other unfortunate truths this little gambit might force him to expose, was gutting him as neatly as the compassionate brown eyes that stared across the table at him.

"Spare me your pity. Did you really think it would be a happy story?" The words were harsh and scraped like sandpaper in his throat, and as soon as the look on her face folded into a frozen half-smile he realized they were the wrong ones.

"Right," she said quickly, and busied herself shuffling the deck again. Halfway through the motions her hands slowed and came to rest on the table, and she stared at a spot between them for a moment before glancing up at him. "Thank you for answering. I'm sure you would have rather not."

He just looked away and slid the cards she'd dealt towards himself, resigned to the fact that the way things were going so far he'd lose this hand too.

Sure enough, on the show Jane's pair of queens seemed to stare smugly up at him, as if mocking his lowly jacks. With a decidedly graceless shove of the worthless hand in her direction, he folded his arms across his chest and slumped back in his chair. "It seems the Norns like you better Jane," he groused.

"Or maybe I'm just not as bad as I thought I was," she shot back. She straightened the cards and tilted her head, tapping idly at the ornate design on the back of the cards. It didn't seem to take her long at all to settle on her next question, asking it with a wistful sort of curiosity in her eyes. "What do you miss the most about Asgard?"

Odd, that she hadn't asked about Thor once yet. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Regardless, he was relieved that she'd left the more treacherous waters of his past in favor of something a little easier to answer. There were plenty of things he would say that he did miss about Asgard - regardless of the circumstances under which he'd left, or the plans he'd had, he'd always loved the realm. He'd seen and visited all nine of them in his life, had spent many idle days wandering the spaces between the stars to ferret out pathways to each world. But none of them pulled him back the way Asgard had, with its shining towers and pearlescent sky. If he was right about Jane though, there was one place she'd enjoy hearing about more than any other.

"The library," he said without hesitation, and it was mostly true. "The Aesir may not be the most scholarly of people, but the Allfather is wise enough to value knowledge. In the palace there is a grand library filled with books from all of the nine realms, with shelves that soar upwards until they meet the arching ceiling far overhead, and great sweeping stairs that lead to galleries so you can reach them all. A man could spend his whole life there, and never read every word." A lopsided smile tugged at his mouth. "I spent countless afternoons there as a child, hiding from the master of arms. I was never as enthusiastic about those lessons as Thor was."

A soft smile crept onto Jane's face as she listened. "It sounds amazing." She hesitated a moment, and ducked her own head almost shyly. "I spent a lot of time in the library at school, as a kid. I was always younger than the other children." She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug and studied the cards between her hands. "Sometimes books made better friends, you know?"

_Ah__._ Loki smothered his grin of triumph, did his best to simply nod quietly but inwardly he was cheering. Her small admission was endearing, in its own way...and an advantage he intended to press. "Yes," he nodded slowly in agreement, and held her gaze carefully when she glanced up, startled. "I do know."

His words were tinged with empathy and slipped effortlessly from his glib tongue, warming her brown eyes as the moments stretched out until he found himself looking away. The easiest lies to tell were always those grounded in truth.

"Last hand, Jane. Do you think your luck will hold?" he broke the silence with a wink, and she busied herself with the deck grimly, looking for all the world like a man marching to his execution. She let out a squeak of protest when he swiped it from her grip. "I think it's only fair I get a turn to deal, don't you?" he chided with a crooked grin. She wrinkled her nose in protest but didn't put up a fight.

Squares of black piled up before each of them like tea leaves waiting to be read. Loki gathered his up, fanned them neatly and looked them over, trying to remember what Jane had said about the various hands. He thought he had something useful here - four cards in order, starting with the seven, and all that odd black shape she called a spade. But the fifth card...it didn't match at all, and he was sure Jane had said he'd need all five for it to count. He waited patiently while Jane pondered her own cards, and when she slid her discards toward him he carefully counted her replacements off the top of the pile.

Then it was his own turn. He peeled the top card off to take the place of the odd one he'd thrown back and the Jack of Spades winked up at him. He lifted his eyes to find Jane staring down at her own hand, the hint of a smile hovering about her mouth.

"You show first," he reminded her, and that hint bloomed into a full grin as she slapped her handful of cards down gleefully.

"Ha!" she shouted, and banged her palms on the table for emphasis. "A full house. Beat that!" She beamed happily and wiggled in her seat like an excited puppy, and he couldn't help but chuckle at her excitement.

"That's a good hand," he agreed with a mournful sigh. "I'm not sure if mine beats that or not." With exaggerated slowness he laid the spread of his cards flat on the table and peered coyly up at Jane through hooded eyes. "You tell me, Jane."

* * *

She should have had this game in the bag. She'd won the first two hands on lucky pairs, nothing special, and it wasn't as if a full house was the sort of hand to scoff at. But Loki's show lay baldly on the table before her, the neat string of spades and numbers a stark contrast to the chaotic whirl of her thoughts. Her mouth opened and shut a few times before she seemed to find her voice. "That's a...you just got a straight flush."

"Did I?" he exclaimed with wide innocent eyes, and rested his chin on his hand to stare piercingly across the table at her. "That beats your full house, if I remember correctly. Doesn't it?"

Jane couldn't seem to string words into any coherent order, so she settled for nodding. Her heart was free-falling, tumbling over and over in her chest embarrassingly. It wasn't as if she was some silly teenager, playing spin the bottle. She'd certainly done more than kiss a man in her life...so why was she so nervous?

Perhaps because she'd never had a man stare at her the way Loki was right now, his unearthly eyes almost feral in their intensity, as if he were considering ways to literally devour her.

With a languid deliberateness he stood and sauntered the too-short distance around the table that separated their chairs. Nervousness shifted ever so slightly to something electric, mixing with anticipation into a spark that crackled along her nerves and coiled in her stomach like she'd swallowed lightning. She half expected to see a flash when his hands wrapped themselves around her arms and pulled her, unresisting, to her feet.

"Time to pay up then, I think." His smooth voice had gone dark, rubbing over her skin like sable. She had a moment to wonder if this breathless terror was what Faust had felt when the Devil demanded his due, and then his fingers were burying themselves in her hair and there was no more room for thought in her head.

The first warm brush of his lips was feather-soft and brief, like a feint to test her guard. Two, three more times came those butterfly touches of his mouth to hers, and then - as if he'd convinced himself she wasn't about to run away, he slanted his lips across hers and the kiss became something much more dangerous. He nipped softly at the curve of her lower lip, and when it fell open with her tiny gasp he followed that breath into her mouth, his tongue dancing along the ridge of her teeth, beckoning. He smelled of cedar and tasted of spice, exotic and beguiling. The threads that bound her bones together began to fray and she clung to the lean strength of him as her own traitorous tongue flickered to life, teasing along the firm lines of his mouth.

It was both too soon and not quickly enough when he pulled sharply away, and to Jane's eternal embarrassment a tiny whimper of protest slipped out. Her lashes trembled open as Loki's hands untangled from her hair and he stepped from her grip, his seafoam eyes gone dark. They roiled with some inscrutable emotion like an ocean in the grip of a storm as he stared down at her, the beat of his pulse hammering in the hollow curve of his throat.

"Well played, Jane." The husky edge on his voice shot straight to her belly like a swallow of good whiskey, warm and liquid. She couldn't quite puzzle out his meaning, her head was still trying desperately to catch up to the moment, but there was an oddly rueful tone to it - as if they'd played one last hand she hadn't been aware of, but had somehow won. She could only nod weakly as he put more distance between them and she ran an unsteady hand through her tousled hair.

"I think...I will bid you goodnight. Thank you for the game," he said, and turned towards the spare room with staccato steps. Jane blinked at the abrupt exit, and frowned down at the table she'd gripped to steady herself. Had it been that awful? He hadn't exactly seemed unaffected.

Confusion melded into irritation as she gathered up the scattered cards. It had been his idea, in the first place...she refused to feel insulted by his retreat. She was trying to stuff the uncooperative deck back into its mangled box when something odd about the cards caught her eye, and she pulled them back out to spread the stack of them across the surface of the table. She could only shake her head in disbelief at what she saw.

Thirty-nine Jacks of Spades staring cheekily back up at her.


	7. Chapter 7 - A Hard Truth

_Author's Note: I try not to leave long-winded notes at the start of a chapter, because nobody wants to be pulled out of their reading experience by me blathering on. But in this case it might be warranted - for me to apologize in advance for this chapter and any mistakes there might be in it. I have no beta reader, so mostly my editing consists of me staring at the computer screen until my brain turns to mush, deleting a few things, throwing up my hands in disgust, and finally posting whatever is leftover._

_That being said, here is this chapter in all its extended, bloated, and dubious glory. I hope you enjoy it despite that._

_And I promise more Loki next time._

_Song of the Chapter: The Walk, by Imogen Heap_

* * *

"_Father__!"_

The bellow of Thor's voice was nearly loud enough to drown out the succession of slamming doors along the hallway that led towards the All-father's suite of rooms, the cry repeated with every room Thor opened and surveyed. From his great carved seat before the merrily crackling fire of the solar Odin exchanged a weighted glance with Frigga and reached to pour himself another bowlful of mead from a flagon at his elbow.

"It would seem our son has something to discuss with you," she said mildly, settling her needlework frame in her lap and arching a brow at Odin.

He grimaced into his bowl, watching the amber surface of his mead dance as yet another door crashed shut. "It would seem so," he agreed, and met her steady blue gaze with one of his own. "I might suggest retiring for the evening, dear."

The faintest hint of humor curled her generous lips as she bent to tuck her wooden hoop and skeins away in a basket beside her chair. "Odin Borson," she chided softly as she straightened. "Did you not tell him?"

Her husband's continued silence was answer enough, and Frigga's smile grew wider. "I do not envy you this conversation then, my love." After a brief pause to run her fingers through his thick hair and press a kiss atop his head, she strode towards the door that connected the solar to their private rooms and soon was lost to sight.

Odin had time for a few more pensive sips punctuated by the thundering boom of hardwood swinging shut before Thor finally found the right door and surged into the room.

"Father!" he cried and strode forward, long legs eating up the distance between them easily. Thor's hair was disheveled and his breath came in heavy bursts, as if he'd ran a great distance, but Odin couldn't help noticing how much more composed his son was than he ever would have been a year past.

"Thor," Odin rumbled in reply, and gestured in the direction of the empty seat beside him. "Sit. You look as if you could use a drink, my son." He busied himself with pouring a second bowl of mead.

Thor ignored his suggestion and instead circled to stand before the fire, agitation fairly vibrating his frame as he paced a short circuit on the bearskin rug that softened the hard stone floor. He waved away the proffered drink in favor of folding his thick arms over his still heaving chest. "This is no time to be drinking!" Thor's eyes bored intently into Odin's remaining one. "Do you know what Heimdall has told me?"

"Does this have anything to do with your brother?" Odin asked.

"Of course it does." Thor raked impatient fingers through the rumpled strands of his hair and stopped nearly mid-stride to round on Odin. "Do you know where he is, Father? _Who __he __is __with__? _I've been asking Heimdall nearly every day if he's seen any sign of Loki, and every day he tells me that Loki has hidden himself from sight. Until today. Something must have happened to make Loki lose his focus, and Heimdall found him." The fingers of Thor's right hand opened and shut, as if they ached to wrap around the handle of Mjolnir, and his voice grew strained. "He is on Midgard, Father. With _Jane__._"

Odin hummed softly in his throat. "And has she been harmed? Many days have passed since we lost track of him."

"Of course not!" Thor burst out. "Do you think I would be nearly this calm if something had happened?"

At Odin's lifted brow Thor had the grace to look sheepish, and with a visible effort stilled his restless feet and hands. He braced one forearm on the heavy mantle mounted above the wide timber lintel, but couldn't keep his fingers from drumming on the polished surface. "If I had known that this would happen, I never would have agreed to your idea," he said heavily.

Odin shifted his weight in the great carved chair and averted his gaze.

"Father..." The word was drawn and slow, suspicion adding its own patina to Thor's voice and narrowing his eyes. His arm fell from the mantle back to his side as he turned towards Odin. "Please tell me you did not know this would happen. Tell me you did not convince me of this scheme knowing full well that Jane Foster would be put in harm's way."

"Who is to say that she is in harm's way?" Odin hedged. "He has been there for days now without incident."

"That is hardly the point, is it?" Accusation heated the words. "I can scarcely believe it, Father. You know what Jane Foster means to me. How could you have even taken the risk?"

Odin shot up from his seat, heedless of the dregs of mead that sloshed across the floor from his overturned bowl. "Because it is mine to take!" he roared, the spark of anger in Thor's voice setting flame to the tinder of his pride. He drew himself up straight, as intimidating and powerful as ever despite his advancing years. "Do you presume to know more than the All-father? Do you know the secrets that are whispered into my ears by the Norns whilst I slumber in the Odinsleep?"

Unhappiness pressed Thor's lips into a thin line, but he backed down. "No." He paused a beat. "I merely wish that I had been made aware of the chain of events you had foreseen. That was unfair of you, Father." Thor broke off to peer sideways at Odin. "Perhaps there is more of you in Loki than any of us would have guessed."

Odin smiled. "Perhaps. But ask yourself this - if you had known the situation as you do now, would you truly have made a different decision? What would you give to have your brother restored to us? The threads of all our lives wind together with that of Jane Foster, this much I am sure of. But before this all is over I fear that you may have to choose, my son." Odin placed a hand on his son's shoulder, felt the muscles taut with tension beneath his hand. The weight of hidden knowledge carved deep lines into his face and compassion melted the hard ice of his eyes. " Which will it be if the Norns pick up their shears? The mortal, or your brother?"

Thor's stricken gaze was all the reply Odin received.

* * *

"If we used a toroidal solenoid as the basis of the main structure," Jane tapped at the doughnut structure that glowed softly on her computer screen, her hands gesturing animatedly as she continued. "Then we can place a second solenoid within that, and according to Maxwell's equations -"

"No," Loki broke in with exasperation, bracing on hand atop the chair she sat on to lean over her shoulder and trace the circular shapes with one finger. They'd been hashing out plans for the wormhole generator all morning, and getting nearly nowhere. "These will be far too close together. The slightest influence will cause the 'negative mass', as you call it, to rebel. You cannot take that chance. Why can we not leave more room between the two structures?"

He wasn't so caught up in the discussion to miss the subtle angle she adopted, leaning away from his arm, and he squashed the feeling of frustration that had been building since their kiss the evening prior. He'd thought perhaps that initiating some sort of physical contact between them would break down the barriers Jane had built, but instead it seemed only to have made them even more impassable, with her leaping like a startled deer anytime he got close.

And other than her marching up to him angrily this morning and demanding that he restore the deck of cards to their original state, she hadn't mentioned a thing about the events of last night. Even her getting upset might be preferable to her infuriating ability to ignore him, or lie to herself. Prancing about all morning as if she hadn't been affected in the slightest by their kiss...as if they hadn't, for the briefest of moments, shared the same impulses.

Maybe he'd just been away from women for far too long and had lost the ability to read them, to remain objective.

Or maybe it was just this one woman who defied expectations.

Either way, it felt like a step taken backwards rather than progress, and his impatience had become a barely caged tiger - one which he swore paced faster with each perfumed hint of violets that wafted up from her hair.

She pushed herself up from the chair and took a few steps away, her unsubtle hint souring his expression. "The distance has to be precise," she bit out, her own frustration clear in the short angry motion of shoving hands through the thick mass of her hair as she paced. "Or else the parallel spring constant will not be negative, and without that the negative mass will be unstable. That is what will keep the substance in place. But I don't...I just can't see how..."

The fit of manic energy ceased suddenly, leaving her wan and listless as she slumped onto the nearby couch. She rubbed tiredly at her eyes with one hand, and Loki felt a certain sense of discomfort at seeing her boundless enthusiasm sapped. If there had been one constant in these past couple weeks of turmoil, it had been Jane's keen fervor.

"I'm more of a mathematician than an engineer," she said tiredly. "Erik was always better at this sort of thing than I. I wish he were here." She shot a glare in his direction, and Loki didn't have to work too hard for the guilty expression he let slide onto his face. He bore the older physicist no ill will, had in fact been rather impressed by his frightful intellect, and the man had proven most useful indeed up until the point he had ultimately ruined everything.

But the pupil outshone the teacher, that much Loki could admit.

"So why not find an engineer?" He circled around the bank of desks and computers to lean one hip against the far end of the couch, arms folding as he stared down at her challengingly. He refused to accept that she would give up now. Would she decide the whole thing was a waste of time, and call to turn him in? Even though he knew the betrayal was coming, the anticipation of it sat heavy like a stone in his gut. There was so much left to do still, with regards to Jane and his machinations, yet he feared he was running out of time. He racked his brain for ideas and came up with the name of the man with the red suit of armor, the one with the glib tongue, the quick mind, and the tower full of mechanisms. "What about Tony Stark?"

Jane snorted. "I can't just call up Tony Stark. He's...well, he's _Tony __Stark_." She said the name almost reverently, and Loki wondered if this man was what passed for royalty on Midgard. He certainly had owned the house for it. "It's not as if you can just look his phone number up on the internet, you know."

Tense minutes passed in silence. Jane stretched out on the sofa with one arm flung over her eyes and Loki pondered their situation, eventually arriving at the only one he could see working, as distasteful as it might be.

"You could ask SHIELD for help," he finally said. "Maybe they would put you in touch with Tony Stark. After all, this project is exactly what they've been supporting you for, isn't it?"

She lifted her arm and peered up at him consideringly, folding her hands across her midsection as her eyes unfocused and she appeared to turn the thought over and over. He could tell from her guarded reaction she was as reluctant to involve SHIELD as he was in this situation...but what other choice did she have?

"It's a thought," she allowed. A gradual light filled her eyes, and she straightened. "I can put together a proposal, email it to Director Fury...maybe he will pass it on to Tony." Zeal restored, Jane leapt from the couch and threw herself back in front of the computer, the keyboard resuming its ever-present clatter.

And he was left to his own devices, again.

He dragged himself over to the nearest overburdened bookshelf, aimlessly perusing the titles. It was childish and petulant to feel resentful of a computer, he told himself. Just further proof of how bored he was here on Midgard, that a mortal woman had become his best source of entertainment. His fingers trailed idly over the mismatched collection. Battered paperback novels were interspersed with heavy leather-bound volumes, their ornately lettered spines glimmering back at him in the bright midday sun that poured through the wide windows. A familiar name on one of them caught his eye, and he pulled the hefty tome from its home on the shelf, opening it to the broad title page.

"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare," he read aloud, and glanced over at Jane's profile. "I have heard of this man."

The clacking of keys stopped as she turned towards him, tilting her head curiously. "You have?"

Loki nodded, and thumbed through the gilt-edged pages, enjoying the familiar musty smell of an old book. It seemed some things were the same, regardless of the realm. "In the library on Asgard we had his writings. Odin considered him the equal of any of our _skalds_."

Jane hummed quietly in assent, silent some moments as she regarded him inscrutably. "Try 'Macbeth'," she suggested dryly.

"I have read that," Loki replied automatically, before pausing to narrow his eyes at her. "Are you mocking me, Jane?"

She merely smiled, an infuriatingly smug little smirk that left him shaking his head in disbelief, and turned back to her work. He replaced the book and continued to read titles, many containing words that meant little to him. He could only assume they were related to her field of study. On the third shelf though he found a pair of books that called to him, with decorative artwork dancing around the cover in patterns he found reminiscent of home.

Pulling the both of them from their places he took up residence on the long sofa, wrapped in its worn supple embrace. It might look frightful, but he could appreciate why she kept it around. He pulled the first book from the pair and opened it, soon losing himself in its contents.

* * *

It wasn't until she'd clicked send on her email, some time later, that Jane realized how silent Loki had become. She'd fallen into that focused sense of purpose that overtook her at times, when she easily forgot about the rest of the world and lost track of everything but the tangle of logic she was busily picking apart at that moment. With a bleary glance at the clock on the wall she pushed away from her desk, the wheels of her chair rolling easily on the painted concrete floor. She thought perhaps Loki had disappeared again, to whatever place it was he went sometimes until he grew hungry and returned, like the stray alley-cat fed once but too haughty to stick around properly. She more than half-hoped that was the case...she could use a bit of space at the moment.

Her sleep the night before had been restless, plagued by dreams that had melted beneath the onslaught of morning's light, leaving her with little but the smudges of exhaustion that bruised her eyes. She hadn't needed the elusive dreams though, to tell her what was bothering her.

She'd kissed Loki. And worst still, she had enjoyed it. Thor's own brother...the scourge of Earth, responsible for an unimaginable amount of destruction...and she'd been disappointed when he'd pulled away.

Guilt and shame still curdled her stomach, mixing with the nervous anticipation that fluttered in her belly every time he drew near to create a volatile brew that threatened to boil over at any moment. She'd scarcely been able to eat more than a few bites of her breakfast because of it, had spent her morning agonizing over her course of action as she waited in terror for the door of the spare bedroom to swing open, as if it were a switchblade being waved in her face. Should she confront him? Tell him not to get any ideas, that she was sorry she'd made the gamble in the first place? Throw sanity to the wind and demand to know why he'd left? She had no compass or experiences to guide her here.

So instead she chickened out at the end, and opted for ignoring everything that had happened.

With a sigh Jane rubbed at her blurry vision and stood, only then noticing Loki's dark head in stark contrast with her ivory couch, a thin book held in his long fingers. Whatever he'd found appeared to engross him - a tiny line marred the space between his brows, and he didn't even so much as glance in her direction as she drew nearer. She opened her mouth to ask if he was interested in lunch, and it remained agape in horror when she finally made out the covers of what he was reading. It was her copies of the _Prose __Edda_ and the _Poetic __Edda_, brought back from Norway in a vain attempt to glean some knowledge about Thor and Asgard.

How embarrassing. There was no way Loki would assume it was just coincidence she owned those.

Face heating, she glided past him and headed towards the kitchen. Perhaps if she stuck her head in the fridge, she could wait out her mortification in relative comfort. Thankfully he showed no signs of noticing her, and she bent down to rummage in the back of the refrigerator for a soda.

"Where in the name of the Norns did this drivel come from?"

Loki's disgusted voice came from directly behind her, startling Jane into straightening. Her progress was halted by the cracking of her head against the roof of the fridge compartment, and tears filled her eyes at the sharp pain. Moaning slightly she rubbed one hand gingerly against the sore spot and rounded to glare daggers at Loki.

"Jesus," she grumbled as she shut the door of the refrigerator and set her soda on the counter, popping open the tab with one nail. "Give me some warning before you start popping out of thin air."

He waved off her complaint, instead thrusting the books into her startled grasp. He stabbed one finger at the top copy, and his brows snapped together in a ferocious scowl. "These have names, places, and things that I know. But these events..." He trailed off, then shook his head as if to collect his thoughts and continued. "None of these things have happened. Who would write such falsehoods?"

"They're just stories," Jane shrugged, leaning back against the counter and taking a drink. "Collected by one man, but just...myths and legends. No one knows exactly their source, outside of a shared culture." She frowned pensively at him. "Why does it upset you so much?"

"It's slander!" he cried. "Claiming that I have beasts for children, and with a frost giant? That I have a wife, and spend eternity bound beneath a serpent? That I have forever opposed the Aesir, and will bring about the end of the world with the help of the jotun? It's all nonsense!"

Jane's brow lifted with disbelief. "And when did you ever care what us mortals thought?"

He slitted his eyes at her. "It's the principle of things. Is that the sort of reputation you would like?"

"Well seeing as how you did your best to bring about something pretty damned close to Ragnarok here on Earth, I wouldn't say that the stories are all that far off...in principle."

He gaped at her for some moments, as if struggling to comprehend her audacity. Jane herself wasn't even sure where her belligerence had come from. "How can you imply such things? Everything I have done, here and on Asgard, has been for the greater good of everyone. I prevented a spoiled, childish prince from gaining the All-father's throne and plunging the realms into war. I would have saved humanity from its own inherent flaws, given the chance."

She was flabbergasted by his arrogance. After everything they'd discussed, he still managed to see some version of events where he came out the hero? It was impossible to believe that she'd even momentarily been attracted to him. The coiled tension she'd been wrestling with all morning wormed tendrils into her disbelief, seeking to hitch itself to any sort of outlet. She was enraged all of a sudden - absurdly angry that he wasn't someone she could feel good about caring for. She hated him, for being here instead of Thor. For wringing any scrap of affection from her.

_ For being the wrong brother._

"Oh yes, you're just the picture of selflessness, aren't you?" she scoffed. "We have a saying, you know - the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But in your case, the good intentions are still just a means to an end. When everything is said and done, it's still all about you. Your needs, your wants. Otherwise you wouldn't be so hung up on other people's opinion of you."

He flinched, and his face went slack with surprise before it hardened. "Don't stand there and presume to know me! You understand nothing about where I come from, or who I am."

"Oh, I know enough. You stomp around with the biggest inferiority complex I've ever seen, constantly playing the victim." Her lips curled with mockery. "Poor Loki, the universe has mistreated you. You grew up in the shadow of your big brother, and everyone lied to you." She knew she was being cruel, and yet seemed powerless to stop herself.

He went bloodless, lips thinning. "How dare you throw that in my face?" he hissed.

"I do dare!" she cut in, a full head of steam propelling her heedlessly past the underlying current of hurt in his words. All the thoughts she'd pondered over the course of her sleepless night came pouring out in an ugly sludge, breaking through the weak spots in the dam of composure she'd tried to maintain. "You're not the only person who ever got a shitty hand dealt to them, you know. But people play the cards they have anyways, because that's part of life. You're so hung up on _who_ you are, when it's _what_ you do that's important. What you do, and the reasons you do it. It's not some accident of birth that determines our worth."

The anger tightening his jaw seemed to drain away, and Loki's piercing eyes turned shrewd. "Are we talking about me or you now, Jane?" He drew closer and she pressed herself back against the counter, as if it could bolster her shaking limbs. She couldn't quite meet his discerning gaze. "Is that how you justify this torch you carry for Thor? That birth is inconsequential, as long as your character is commendable? You would presume to what...deserve to be queen of Asgard? Simply because you are a kind person?" A bitter smirk twisted his mouth, and his voice grew thick with disdain. "I have never heard anything more laughable."

"I don't presume anything, and I don't have to justify it to you!" she cried, cursing the tremble that had found its way into her voice. Of course his presumptions were ridiculous, she knew there was nearly no possible way for her and Thor to be together really - but that didn't mean that in some secret heart of hearts she hadn't fantasized about it. She hated how easily he saw through her, how he could rummage about in the secret places of her soul and pull out, kicking and squalling, those things that should never see the light of day.

"Thor is a good man. I don't know what he was like before he came here, but if you think the only reason I care for him is his status, you're an idiot. The people of Earth love him not because he is a prince, but because he is a hero who placed the needs of others before himself." She pushed ineffectually against his chest as if she could force him back, give herself the space she needed to draw a proper breath again. When that didn't work, she made a weapon of her words, glaring up at him through eyes that had filled with frustrated tears. "That's why you will never be his equal. You'll never care for anyone as much as you do yourself."

He slapped his hands down on the counter, the sound as sharp as gunfire in the silent lab. She was trapped in the cage of his arms as he glared down at her, powerless to do anything but watch as he seemed to struggle for control. The weight of his regard was a tangible thing that tried its hardest to break her beneath it. His breath rasped harshly in and out, stirring a few stray strands of her hair, the only thing that dared to move as the seconds stretched themselves razor-thin. "I should kill you for that," he growled at last through a clenched jaw.

A sad sort of recklessness came over Jane as she rolled on the strength of her guts. "Then why don't you?" she challenged, ready to call his bluff. She lifted her chin imperiously, and that small motion spilled the tears she'd been containing. "Go ahead, and prove that everything I've just said is true."

Those inscrutable jade eyes of his roved her face, following the damp tracks left on her cheek before coming to rest on her lips, brought a mere whisper away from his by her show of bravado. She was suddenly and painfully aware of the fact that her hands still rested on his chest, could feel the steady rise and fall of his breath and the ancient rhythm of his ageless heart beneath her fingertips as it picked up in tempo. A lock of his dark hair fell forward to brush her jaw, one tiny point of contact that she felt as acutely as a fist.

His thumb came up and wiped away the droplet that clung to her cheek, a gentle lingering stroke at odds with the unyielding line of his mouth. "I don't because...perhaps I find you amusing, despite myself," he murmured before his gaze flicked up to meet hers, and Jane struggled to swallow around a throat gone dry at the banked heat she saw there, her own heart stumbling in its paces.

The harsh jangle of her phone ringing broke whatever hold had her frozen in place. With a start Jane snatched her hands back as he stepped away, his arms falling to his sides. The fingers of one hand opened and shut spasmodically before he gestured towards the desk where her cell phone danced, his face becoming a smooth mask once more. "You should probably get that. It might be Director Fury."

With a silent nod she edged past him, reaching for the phone with an unsteady hand. It took her two tries to tap the answer button, and when she put the phone to her ear she prayed her voice came out normally. "Hello?"

"Jane Foster? It's Nick Fury."

The connection was poor as always out here. Nick Fury sounded as if he was speaking to her a room's length away from his phone, and she pressed the speaker to her ear as tightly as she could. "I'm guessing you got my email then, Director?"

"I did, and I think this is brilliant. What I understand of it, that is. I'm forwarding all of this to Tony Stark, and greenlighting whatever funds and material you need to make this happen, Miss Foster. I think this project is of the utmost importance."

A smile broke over Jane's face, and she pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back her laughter of excitement. "Thank you, very much."

Director Fury grunted in acknowledgment of her gratitude. "Look for Tony to contact you sometime in the next few days. If you don't hear from him, let me know and I will try to lean on him...although if there's one thing I know about Tony it's that he does things in his own time."

She nodded furiously, before realizing the futility of the gesture. "I will. Thank you, thank you again," she gushed.

"Goodbye then, Jane," he said brusquely, and before she had a chance to respond the line went dead.

In a daze she set the phone down and turned towards Loki with a grin, the giddy rush of her elation washing away any lingering awkwardness she felt about their odd exchange. "SHIELD thinks it's fantastic. They're sending the project notes to Tony Stark, and giving us whatever we need to complete it." She hadn't been nearly this excited in ages, and it was all she could do to keep from flinging her arms around Loki in a half-mad hug. He'd probably remove one of her hands for even daring. She folded her arms against the urge, and wrestled with the guilt that welled up inside her. He hadn't deserved to be the brunt of her anger with herself.

"I couldn't have gotten this far without you. Thank you," she said, by way of a circuitous apology.

"You're welcome," he said softly as he drew near, hands clasped behind his back. "And congratulations, Jane. I may have had the knowledge, but you've worked hard for this." The smile on his face seemed genuine but brittle, like plaster smoothed over a hole, and try as she might to puzzle it out his expression remained a riddle to her long after he'd walked away.


	8. Chapter 8 - A Gift

_Song of the chapter - Pale Horses, by Moby_

* * *

Figuring that discretion was the better part of valor, Loki had spent most of the day wandering the barren hillsides that rose about Jane's isolated lab, wrapped in his own thoughts. The early summer had cajoled wildflowers from the cacti and bushes that clung to its rocky slopes, startling splashes of yellow and pink that only managed to accentuate the harsh unforgiving landscape. From high up here the building she lived in looked so tiny, alone and insignificant. Much like the woman who lived there.

Which did little to explain why her particular brand of venom had spread so effortlessly through his veins. It couldn't make clear to him why her words had been flechettes that tattered his restraint, made a mockery of his carefully laid plans. He only wished he knew what it was about Jane that caused him to stumble so spectacularly, after thousands of years of twining people about his fingers like so much yarn.

All the time and perspective in the world didn't seem able to answer that question for him.

When the shadows grew long he'd returned to the lab just in time for the evening meal. Dinner had been a tragic affair that still sat uneasily in his belly, stilted and painfully polite. He was coming to hate that false, cordial smile of Jane's - it was like a levee she used to hold back the million thoughts he could see racing through those wide brown eyes of hers.

He ended the evening sitting in his customary spot on the couch, feet up on the low table that sat before it and flipping distractedly through the _Eddas_ again, only half-seeing the words on each page. A fire had been lit to stave off the chill that crept in each evening and it threw warm flickers of light into the dimly lit lab, a cheerful counterpoint to his somber mood.

A mug slid into his peripheral vision, coming to rest near his ankle, and he glanced up when the couch sank beneath Jane's weight as she perched at the opposite end of the cushions. It wasn't the coffee he was used to seeing inside the cup, although it steamed the same. This was lighter in shade, and lacked the bitter smell he'd come to know so well.

He set aside his book and leaned forward, reaching for the drink. "What is this?"

Jane wrapped both hands around her own mug and curled her legs up beside her. "A peace offering," she replied, and nodded towards it. "Just try it."

He lifted the drink to his lips and took a careful sip. It was thicker than coffee and it burst onto his tongue in a startling flood of sweetness and spice, tempered by an underlying bitterness. He took a second, larger drink. "This is very good."

Her timid smile grew wider. "It's Mexican hot chocolate. I swear it's impossible to go back to regular once you've tried it." Jane hesitated, and her smile faded. "I am serious about the peace offering though. I owe you an apology."

Loki set his cup back on the sleek table and dropped his feet to the floor, boots sinking into the deep pile of the rug laid out over the concrete floor. He shook his head emphatically at her declaration, hoping to head her off before she began. He wanted no part in rehashing their scene earlier in the day - neither the argument, or the pendulous moment in which he couldn't discern whether he wanted to kiss her or flay the skin from her bones. At that moment either option would have stopped her mouth and ended the barrage of words he'd felt as acutely as any arrows.

"It is of no consequence. We seem to have a penchant for saying cruel things to each other...perhaps it was simply your turn this time." He gave her a reassuring smile and reached for his discarded book again, only to freeze when Jane leaned across the sofa and laid a hand on his forearm.

"Please, Loki. Hear me out," she pleaded, and when he turned her eyes were wide and earnest. "I've been thinking about a lot of things today. I'd like a chance to say them."

He couldn't bring himself to brush her off when she looked at him like that, no matter how little he looked forward to another discussion. Reluctantly he settled back. "I'm listening."

Jane drew her hand away and wrapped them both around her cup, turning it in her grip as she stared pensively down at the contents, hair falling in a chesnut curtain around her shoulders. "I was horrible to you this morning. It's just...I suppose I have a lot on my mind right now. But that doesn't give me the right to take the moral high ground, or to judge you. You _were_ right, I don't know what your life has really been like. And while I think what you did was wrong, it's not my place to keep rubbing your nose in it." She blew out a breath and spread the fingers of one hand with a rueful twist of her lips. "Not to mention, it was unfair of me to say that you are selfish when here I am...harboring a fugitive because you have something I want.

Her forlorn frown grew even deeper, and she hunched her shoulders unhappily. "I've been a hypocrite. I'm sorry."

Something loosened deep within his chest at her words, a binding he hadn't even known existed until that moment. He had a sudden, unreasonable need to see her eyes clearly, to read for himself what was written there. To see if she was speaking truly or not. He brushed back the veil of hair that hid her face from his sight, the warm strands of it like raw silk that slid through his fingers as he tucked it behind the curve of her ear. Startled by his sudden gesture she glanced up, and the last of the cord that had knotted his breath unraveled at the genuine regret he saw on her face.

He let the ends of her hair slip free of his grasp, watching the way the firelight gilded the strands, and then smiled. "Thank you, Jane."

Hesitantly she smiled back and pulled the other side of her hair behind her ear before ducking her head shyly. "You're welcome," she mumbled.

She seemed in a companionable mood, now that her conscience had been eased. "So then, what is it that you have had on your mind, Jane?" he asked archly, one brow winging upward. Would she come clean and admit her attraction to him? It wasn't as useful to his plans as affection, but lust was a spark he could work with. All it took was the right tinder.

Her eyes slid away from his and she clutched the mug in her hands even tighter, knuckles going as white as the ceramic. "It's nothing, really."

"Come now, it can't be nothing," he chided. "Look at you, you're about to crack that poor handle."

Jane drew in an unsteady breath and set the mug on the coffee table, her restless hands twisting about themselves in her lap like a pale ouroboros. "Tomorrow is my father's birthday."

"Will you be celebrating it with him?" Unbidden, frustration welled up within Loki. With SHIELD and Tony Stark becoming involved in the picture his plans were becoming even dicier. He needed every moment Jane could spare - and if she was off with her family that might mean an entire day wasted.

She swallowed thickly and shook her head, those carefully tucked strands slipping loose once more. "No. He, ah...died ten years ago. In a car wreck." She shot him a brave smile and laughed, but the hollow sound held no mirth. "It's silly, isn't it? That was so long ago. It shouldn't bother me much anymore, and it doesn't usually. But he loved birthdays."

He suspected the answer already to his next question, saw it written in the fragile way she held herself, but he asked it anyway. "And...your mother?"

"Dead as well," Jane whispered, her eyes unfocused as she stared past him into her memory. "When I was twelve."

He found that his own throat had gone dry. "No siblings?"

She only shook her head and huddled further into herself. "No. They had trouble just having me, and then my mom spent years fighting cancer. No time or energy for another baby."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Loki murmured, surprised by the rush of empathy that washed over him. They were both orphans, of a sort...even if her tragedy was not of her own making.

"It really doesn't usually bother me, I swear. It's just that, every year since the accident I've visited him on his birthday. But he's back in Virginia, and I'm here. And plane tickets aren't exactly the sort of expense I think I could justify, spending money so that I can stand about in a graveyard and turn my eyes red." Jane heaved a deep sigh and then stood abruptly, collecting her cooling mug of chocolate from the table. "I'll be fine. It's a stupid tradition anyways, and it's time I got over it."

Loki angled an encouraging smile up at her as she started towards the kitchen. She made it only a few steps before she turned back, half her face hidden in the shadows thrown by the firelight. "I'm sorry to have dumped that on you. Thank you for listening."

He held her gaze a heartbeat longer than was comfortable, until she began to fidget beneath his attention. "I do not mind listening to you, Jane."

With an awkward bob of her head she shuffled away again. He didn't say anything as she rinsed out her mug and bid him a good night, merely nodded absently in reply. The seed of an idea had taken hold in his quick mind, and he was busy plotting a new strand of his web.

* * *

He waited impatiently the next morning, drumming his fingers on the small dining table as he heard the alarm blare in her bedroom like a klaxon. The sounds of her shower seemed to go on forever, and it was years too long before she emerged, clean but still bleary-eyed as she always was until after her first cup of coffee had been drained.

With an effort of will he restrained himself until she'd finished her toast and drink, until she no longer resembled an automoton although her eyes were still hollow and red-rimmed. He sprang to his feet with scarcely contained glee, and rounded the table toward her. She glanced up from the article she'd been reading, and suspicion hardened her face as she took in his unbridled excitement and the fact that he was wearing his 'Midgard' clothes. "What are you up to, Loki?"

The grin that had been threatening broke free as he offered her his hand. "Tsk, Jane," he deflected. "You assume I'm always up to no good."

She raised one brow skeptically, but slid her fingers into his grip and allowed herself to be pulled from the seat. "That's because you usually are," she said dryly, but stayed warily at arm's length. "And you still haven't answered my question."

Her hand was soft and delicate in his own, still perfumed from her shower with that violet scent he'd come to associate with Jane. Tugging on it, he urged her closer but she balked. "I'm not about to bite you, woman," he sighed with exasperation. Not that the prospect didn't suddenly appeal to him, the moment he'd voiced it. Would she purr for him again if he buried his nose in that cloud of waves and nipped the tender skin behind her ear? He was half-tempted to find out.

"Unless you ask me to," he added slyly, and chuckled at the rise of pink on her cheeks as she gaped up at him. Sobering he patted her hand gently, stilling her attempts to draw it away. "I thought we might visit your father today."

Comprehension slowly dawned. "You can take me there?" At his nod, he saw the wheels beginning to whir in her mind. "Through a wormhole? But...it's never been done before, has it? What if the methods you use are incompatible with human physiology? We need more data, clinical trials and procedures in place -"

"Jane," he interrupted, wading into her stream of protests. When she continued to rattle on, he put a hand to her chin and tilted her gaze up to meet his. "Jane."

She sputtered to a stop, eyes gone huge in her face. He could see the discordant mix bubbling within them, equal parts elation and terror. "Do you trust me?"

Long seconds ticked by as he waited for her answer. For some unfathomable reason he felt raw and exposed beneath her searching gaze, her answer suddenly impossibly important. At her eventual nod, he let out a breath he hadn't even been aware of holding and smiled down at her. "You should." He gathered her close, her tiny figure fitting perfectly into the circle of his arms, and a hint of his old swagger crept into his grin. "I _am_ a god, after all."

She laughed at that despite herself and pressed tighter to his chest, eyes screwing resolutely shut like a woman on her way to the executioner. He could feel the frantic pace of her heart through the layers of both their clothing as it tripped over itself. "Ok then. I'm ready."

"Picture your father's grave in your mind. Clutch it tightly, like a photograph - with every detail you can recall. And then...hold your breath." He let the thread of his magic spool out, wove it into a net that he spread wide to catch her thoughts. Given an anchor, the line of it snapped taught into a string to guide him through the dark pathways between time. He pulled aside the veil of the world, laid one hand on that metaphorical lifeline, and hurled the both of them into the frigid spaces between realms.

The gap he'd opened dropped them into a sunny field, with manicured grass rolling in every direction like a living carpet beneath the cloudless dome of the sky. Jane clung to his waist a moment longer, her breath gasping in and out in a noisy rush. Had he miscalculated after all? Was the nothingness between worlds anathema to humans? Concern clouded his brow, but before he could inquire after her health she leapt from his arms and let out a whoop of exultation.

"That. Was. Amazing!" she panted, beaming up at him, and he couldn't keep the answering grin off his face. "I can't believe that just happened. I can't_believe_ I just traveled through spacetime." She placed both hands on her head, as if she could hold in her excitement, and took a few tottering steps before turning back to him. "That was incredible..._you__'__re_ incredible. Thank you, Loki."

He was inordinately pleased by her reaction. It was better than he'd even dared hope for, when the idea of this had first occurred to him. "You are most welcome," he preened.

Her good humor bled quickly away though as she came to a stop before a humble stone set flush with the ground. She crouched beside it, and began picking absently at the grass that encroached on the borders of the marble square. Loki drew closer and saw there were words etched into the polished surface, easily read over Jane's shoulder. The top of the broad stone simply said 'Foster', and below that were two names and a series of dates ending ten and sixteen years before, respectively - James Stanley and Elizabeth Jane.

"Hello, Dad. Mom," she said quietly, and he had to turn away from the raw grief that etched deep lines on her face.

He wandered off a ways to give her some privacy, picking a path between the even rows of stones that marched lockstep across the gentle hills. Every so often the smooth line was broken by tall carved stones, reaching like broken teeth from a crone's mouth. Loki found the effect unsettling, and wondered what the fascination was with stuffing loved ones in the heartless ground. At least a pyre embraced you back - the earth could care less whether you were there or not.

The air here was far more humid than that of New Mexico, and oppressively hot - like being swaddled in a damp blanket. He was glad he'd exchanged his thick Asgardian clothes for the thinner shirt and trousers of this realm. As it was, he found himself heading for the shade of a lone oak tree that stood in vigilance over the endless fields. Jane's slight figure was out of earshot, but he could still see her kneeling at the base of the stone, her hands busily neatening the edges as her mouth moved ceaselessly. He wondered what it was she spoke of, and if she truly expected any answer from those silent bones.

He slid to a seat and leaned his head back against the rough bark of the oak, eyes lulled closed by the heat and the ceaseless drone of insects in the branches above when he heard her approach at last. She flopped down beside him with a sigh, stretching her legs out alongside his across the cool grass. Wisps of hair had curled around her forehead, dampened by the humidity and the faint sheen of sweat that clung to her skin. "I always forget how hot it can be here," she said ruefully, rolling her head towards him. "I complain about New Mexico sometimes, but at least it's a dry heat."

He wondered how many tears she'd had to cry, to turn her eyes so red. "Did you have a good visit?"

She nodded, plucking a stray sprig of clover to twirl between her fingers. "I did."

A mellow quiet fell between them, both simply enjoying the breeze and dappled sunlight that danced across them as the leaves of the oak shivered. Loki had nearly drifted off again when Jane's voice broke the silence.

"You're lucky, you know."

He lifted one eyelid lazily and arched an incredulous brow at her, wondering what sort of nonsense she could be spouting. "I am?" He snorted delicately. "I fail to see how you arrive at that conclusion."

She twisted a handful of grass and peered up at him. "You still have family. That's more than some people can say."

He narrowed his eyes at her, reining back his initial scathing response. He'd worked too hard to set up this day for them to ruin it with another spat. "They are dead to me," he bit out, and folded his arms across his chest. "As I am dead to them. It is little different from being orphaned." In his hand he could still feel the phantom shape of a dagger, the sudden give as armor and skin parted beneath it.

The look of horror and betrayal that had filled Thor's eyes...but worst of all, the sorrow.

Bitterness coated his tongue, and he swallowed against the acrid taste of it. He'd done things in the name of ambition that he could never take back. Burned bridges that could never be rebuilt.

Sacrificed too much on the altar of his madness.

"I don't believe that," Jane said softly, but a thread of steel ran through her words. "If they had turned their backs on you, why did Thor go to so much trouble to take you back to Asgard? They could have left you here, to be executed by SHIELD."

The earnestness in her eyes was like a stiletto beneath his ribs and he looked resolutely away, but it didn't stop her from continuing. The hand she laid on his shoulder burned like a brand, and he wanted to squirm away from the uncomfortable truths she continued to lay out. "When I found you, you were barely alive. I don't believe that was all from your fall - Thor wasn't nearly so hurt when he arrived the first time. If you were still that injured from fighting with the Avengers...how did you escape?"

Her question hung in the air, daring him to pick apart the words and decipher the answer for himself. But he couldn't. The truth was too harsh a light, and if he gave over that shadow to examination there would be nowhere left to hide. He pressed his lips against the urge to answer, against the sounds that would shatter what shields he still had left.

"As usual, you know not of what you speak," he ground out, but the words were without rancor. There was no anger left in him at the moment, only the hollow spaces between his bones where it had once lived, gnawing on his marrow for fuel. "You are determined to make a hero of Thor."

"Maybe." Jane's small forlorn smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "But I believe he hasn't given up on you as thoroughly as you'd like."

The profile she turned to him was shattered and reformed countless times by the play of shadows and light as branches waved overhead. Words of denial rose, but none seemed to emerge whole past the gauntlet of fragmented misconceptions that clogged his throat. They both lapsed into a silence that was crowded with unspoken words.

Jane stirred first, brushing fingertips stained green against the worn denim of her jeans. "We should probably head home. I've still got a lot of work to do before Tony Stark calls." Her eyes fixed on the distant square of her parent's headstone, and her gaze grew wistful. "I wish I'd brought some flowers to leave."

A simple enough request, he supposed.

Loki pressed his palms together in his lap, plucked at the strings of his magic, and spread his hands to reveal a cluster of dark blossoms. They arced in graceful sprays of huge deep-throated bells, nearly black in the shade although he knew they'd shine with a purple lustre in the sunlight. In the hollow of their necks they faded to a creamy white, secret pale hearts you could only see from the right angle. Perfume wafted from them in the breeze, thick and just shy of cloying, musky in a way no Midgard flower ever was. He held them out to Jane, and she reached for them hesitantly. "They're real. Not an illusion," he said with a wry smile.

A look of wonder stole onto her face. "What are these?" she breathed.

"They are.._.__minna_. It means 'to remind'. I do not know what flowers you put on graves, we have none in Asgard. On the rare occasion death happens we light pyres and send our dead off in glory. But these are the flowers we give to loved ones. To those who have left us with happy memories." He shrugged, looked away from her incredulous gaze, and told himself it mattered not if she accepted his gift. "They seemed appropriate for your parents."

At last she took the flowers from him, clutching the woody stems and burying her nose in their depths. "They're lovely. And perfect." Without warning, she flung her arms about his shoulders, mindful of the bouquet and yet still with surprising enthusiasm. He flinched at the sudden motion, his hands coming up reflexively to block her before his shock melted into something much warmer, something that had him splaying his fingers tightly against her back.

"Thank you. For everything today," she murmured, and the whisper of her breath curled about the shell of his ear, sent delicate fingers of heat tracing down his spine. Before he could do little more than nod she had scrambled to her feet and taken off towards her parent's grave to place the blooms reverently at the base of the stone, leaving his arms feeling strangely empty.

* * *

_Never fear, dear readers. The Stark-snark rapidly approaches._


	9. Chapter 9 - A Visitor

_Author's Note: I do try for the most part to respond to every review I get, as long as it is not anonymous. If for some reason I haven't, or if you are one of the folk who leave me a guest reply, please be aware that I appreciate every kind word and bit of encouragement you have left for me. And every follow or favorite warms my heart. You are all fantastic._

_I apologize for the brevity of this chapter, but the next part of our story is just too long to try and add it on at the end. I'll make it up to you all next time, I promise. ;)_

_Song of the chapter: Devil's Work, by Miike Snow_

* * *

They'd scarcely stepped back through the tear in space Loki had opened to the lab when Jane's phone began to ring, jangling relentlessly from atop the table where she'd left it. Jane unwound her arms from about his lean waist and reached for the chirping device, Loki's hands sliding slowly from her shoulders as she did. She still felt unsteady from the rush of traveling back through the wormhole, her fingers trembling ever so slightly when she pressed the phone to her ear.

"Hello?" she answered it breathlessly.

"Dr. Foster!" An unfamiliar voice boomed in her ear, clear as day despite her horrid phone service. With a wince she pulled the speaker away as the caller continued. "Tony Stark. Been calling all morning! You got a minute to chat about this little project of yours?"

"M-Mr. Stark!" Jane stammered, and felt her eyes go wide. "Yes, yes of course. I just stepped in the door, but I can pull up the files on my computer on real quick."

"That's good," he said. "Because..."

From outside came a high-pitched whine like the sound of a jet, and the windows of Jane's lab rattled under a barrage of pebbles and sand, dust whipping into a cloud that blocked any view out the glass. As quickly as it had began, the sound suddenly cut off - leaving Jane's ears buzzing still from the unexpected assault. And then, in the silence that followed, came the absurdly mundane sound of her doorbell ringing.

"I'd hate to have come all this way and found you were at the laundromat," Tony finished in her ear.

Horrified, Jane punched the end-call button on her phone and lifted her head to stare wide-eyed at Loki. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit!" Jane whispered hoarsely, rooted to the spot as her brain seemed to chase itself in tiny nonsensical circles. Her place was a wreck, her work disorganized still, and if anyone looked closely enough they'd see all sorts of evidence that she wasn't exactly living here alone.

Chief amongst that the regal Aesir still standing in her kitchen.

Loki simply raised one brow expectantly at her tirade, but that small motion was enough to goad her sluggish limbs into action. Frantically she clutched his arm and tried to pull him towards the wide sliding-glass doors that led out the back of the lab. "You have to get out of here, you have to hide. Tony Stark is _here_, right now!"

He seemed to share in none of her anxiety, setting his heels against her relentless tugging. "Then you should probably answer the door, Jane. Before he grows concerned."

As if on cue, the doorbell chimed once more.

She dropped his arm as if it had burned her, and turned towards the entry. "How can you be so calm?" she hissed over her shoulder at him, making shooing motions as she approached the door. One hand hovered over the deadbolt as she waited for Loki to do something other than stand there with that infuriating smirk on his face.

"Jane?" Tony's voice was muffled by the thick slab of steel, but she could hear the rising note of concern in it. Gritting her teeth, she threw back the bolt and let the door swing open wide, casting a surreptitious glance over her shoulder a she did. Her shoulders slumped with relief when she saw no sign of Loki.

"Mr. Stark," she said again, by way of greeting, and couldn't keep the enthusiastic grin off her face despite her unease. Tony Stark, in the flesh, on her doorstep. She'd never have believed it in a million years if anyone had told her this would happen. He looked every bit as handsome in real life as he did on TV, what little she could see of him. At the moment he was still encased in the Iron Man suit with just the facemask lifted far enough to expose his face - angular, with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard that drew the eye to his square jaw. His dark eyes were framed by faint lines that pushed his age up a few years higher than Jane had assumed, but they were bright and frighteningly sharp, and they sent a frisson of anxiety skating up her spine. She doubted little escaped this man's notice.

Those red metal fingers waved away her greeting. "Please. Just Tony." He peered over her shoulder, searching what little of the building could be seen from the doorway. "Is this a bad time? Do you have company? I thought I heard voices."

Jane swallowed down the knot of panic that was clawing its way up her throat, and prayed she'd miraculously become a better liar through osmosis. She stepped back and gestured for Tony to enter, shutting the door behind him as he did. "No, no - it's a fine time. I was just, um, yelling at the TV."

Tony glanced meaningfully at the blackened rectangle that hung on the far wall behind her, and Jane felt the slow creep of a blush up her cheeks as she silently cursed her clumsy tongue. Damn it...she was messing this up already.

He seemed content to let her fumbling explanation slide. "In that case, I hope you don't mind if I slip into something a little more comfortable," he said as he strode into the lab proper. At her bemused headshake Tony grinned, and with some unseen signal the layers of his armored suit began to retract. Plates folded and slid together in a complicated jigsaw almost faster than Jane's eyes could follow, until Tony was left kneeling with his gauntleted hands buried in the depths of what looked remarkably like an odd bulky briefcase. With a few last mechanical clicks the gloves peeled themselves away from his fists and the entire contraption whispered shut, inert and lifeless save for the faintly glowing blue circle embedded in the burnished red metal.

"That's much better." Tony straightened and ran one hand through his disheveled hair as he tugged his fitted t-shirt back into place with the other, then thrust his open palm in her direction. "Nice to finally meet the woman who was almost responsible for the destruction of the known world."

"W-what?" Jane sputtered, but took his hand reflexively. His grip was firm as he shook hers vigorously.

"Well, I suppose Selvig gets some of that credit too," he explained, letting her hand drop. "They might have been your theories but he was the one getting his hands dirty, building Loki that giant wormhole of doom over the top of my house. Brilliant stuff though, regardless."

Jane tried her best for a smile, felt it wobble about the edges, and gave up the effort. "Thank you. I think."

Tony turning a slow circle as he surveyed Jane's place. Nervously she followed the track of his eyes, desperately searching for any clues that she might not be alone. Would Tony notice that there were still two places set from breakfast that morning? She bustled over and dumped the plates into her sink unceremoniously.

"Sorry, I, ah...can be a bit of a slob," she laughed nervously, and prayed he'd chalk her agitation up to an acute case of being star-struck. "I don't get a lot of company out here. If I'd know you were coming I'd have cleaned up better."

Her heart flip-flopped as she saw over his shoulder the open doorway of her spare bedroom, framing what was clearly a used bed with tousled sheets. Plates she could explain, but someone sleeping over? Her brain stuttered through a dozen half-baked excuses. She couldn't even claim she'd brought a man home if Tony saw that. What sort of hook-up involved sleeping in separate beds?

And then as if by some miracle, she saw the guest room door glide slowly shut, its handle clicking home with the softest of sounds. Apparently Loki wasn't as absent as he appeared to be. The tension drained from her shoulders, and she turned a brighter smile towards Tony.

"Quite the bachelorette pad you've got here. Very space age." Tony drummed his fingertips atop the hood of her freestanding fireplace as he meandered her living room, taking in the curved concrete walls and the tall windows, lingering over her worn leather couch. "Add a shag carpet and you'd have a nice 'Barbarella meets Weird Science' sort of vibe going. I dig it."

Jane could only follow along behind him, flustered. "I, um...am not quite sure Barbarella is my style."

He eyed her up and down, lips pursed thoughtfully. "No, I suppose not. You're more of a Velma than intergalactic space babe." At Jane's immediate frown, Tony threw his hands up placatingly and shot her a winning smile. "No offense meant. I always thought she was hot. Those freckles, and the knee highs?...Mmm hmm."

Jane raised her brows in disbelief. He'd only been here a total of two minutes and she was already exhausted by his rapid-fire conversation. How was she going to last an entire partnership with this man?

Tony turned away and began fiddling with a table full of equipment, fingers dancing over knobs and rifling through sheaves of paper as he worked his way down towards her desk and the softly glowing computer. "So, lay it on me. Fury said you had something workable, a way to recreate the wormhole without the Tessaract, but you're hung up on the fabrication." He flung himself into her desk chair and rolled it in front of her computer before she could reply, hand hovering over her mouse. "Mind if I take a look?"

Jane felt vaguely like a spectator at a racetrack, rooted in one spot as she waited for the cars to come whizzing back past. She didn't envy whatever sort of woman tried to keep up with a man like Tony Stark. "No, go right ahead. It's all under the file I've still got open on the desktop." Dragging over a spare seat she sat herself at Tony's side and watched as his fingers flew across the keys.

"Jesus, what do they have you using here? DOS?" Distaste curled Tony's lip as his eyes ran rapidly over the models and charts she'd worked up so far. "Remind me to have Pepper send you some new equipment. Culver University must keep the purse-strings so tight you'd swear they were tied to the dean's..." He broke off, glanced over at Jane, and shrugged. "Anyways. We'll get you up to speed. Can't have you embarrassing SHIELD."

She fidgeted anxiously as he clicked through the rest of her files in silence, worrying at the frayed cuff of her flannel shirt. Would he even think the theory possible? She'd had to leave gaps in certain segments of her planning, steps she couldn't simply just handwave away without coming clean about the fact that she had a semi-immortal being prepared to augment the abilities of the device she'd plotted out.

"This is...good," Tony allowed at last, stirring Jane from her musings. He pushed back from the desk and folded his hands across his stomach, pinning Jane with his dark gaze. "Really good. It's raw and untested, and would never hold up to scholarly scrutiny yet - but I've never been a terribly big fan of peer review anyways. You've done more in this one paper to advance particle theory than the last five years of the field combined."

Jane couldn't hold back the grin that broke onto her face. "So do you think you can help?"

Tony nodded absently, patting at his pockets before pulling a small flash drive free triumphantly. "I know I can." Plugging it into a free port on her computer, he began copying her work over to it. As her aging CPU chugged away he spun his chair to face her and leaned forward, resting his elbows atop his thighs as he propped his chin on his hands. "I'm concerned about a few things though, Jane."

The bottom dropped out of her stomach and she struggled to find her voice for some moments. Was this the point at which everything fell down about her? When she did manage to speak, her words still sounded strangled to her ears. "What things?"

"I'm not sure I agree with the method you've devised to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect, for one. And this idea of using a magnetic vortex..." Tony shook his head.

"Well, I admit there's still a few holes to be addressed," Jane scrambled. 'But I'm hoping that with a working prototype here I can try out a few different hypotheses. Once I've been able to recalculate certain variables we can try something on a much more complex scale." She did the mental equivalent of crossing her fingers and prayed to whatever gods might be listening that Tony bought her story.

His stare grew considering, and moments passed as he seemed to mull over the idea. At last Tony shrugged and pulled the fob free of her computer with a sharp tug. "Works for me. It's no skin off my nose to put something together, and if Daddy's given you the credit card then I say we melt plastic." He winked cheekily as he rose, and Jane laughed. "I'll let you know when I've got something together and can get it shipped here. R&D will eat this up."

"Thank you so much, Tony," she gushed as she trailed him back to the compacted suit, stepping back as he toed the case open.

"No problem." His brown eyes crinkled with a grin that fell as he checked his watch. "I hate to run but Pepper roped me into the opera tonight, and if I don't get back to New York in the next half hour tonight's star won't be the only person singing soprano."

He knelt to thrust his hands into the open clamshell of the suit and the entire process reversed itself in rapid succession, with Jane looking on in amazement. She could probably watch that a dozen times and never get tired of the almost organic way the metal moved. When he had all but the facemask in place again she led him to the front door, following him out into the bright desert sun.

The gold of his armor gleamed as he snapped the visor down, blocking his face off from her view. With a mocking touch of his gauntlet to his head reminiscent of a cowboy tipping his hat, he powered up the thrusters of his suit and lifted from the ground in a choking cloud of dust. Jane threw an arm over her watering eyes to shield them, and by the time she'd finished wiping the grime from them Tony was little more than a streak edging over the horizon.

"Good riddance," Loki sniffed, and she spun to find him leaning in the open doorway, arms crossed. "I've met bilgesnipes less irritating than that man."

"Do you two have history?" Jane rolled her eyes and watched as the last spark of the Iron Man's trail faded out before turning back to the lab with a shrug. "I don't know, he has a certain charm."

Loki's brows winged upwards as she tried to edge past him through the doorway. "Really, Jane. I'm starting to question your taste in men."

She snorted. "As if my taste in men is any concern of yours."

In the space between one blink and the next his arm appeared before her, braced against the far side of the doorjamb to block her path. Jane stared up at Loki in a long moment of confusion, his green eyes filling her vision as he bent over her. "It could be," he purred, with a wicked tilt to his lips that did strange things to her knees and tangled the breath in her chest.

What in the hell had gotten into him? Yesterday she was sure she'd been a hairsbreadth from being murdered. Yet again. Then today he took her to visit her parents, gave her a gift of sorts, and now he was _flirting_? Her head spun from the effort of keeping up with his mercurial moods. Throwing her hands up in disgust she ducked beneath his arm and headed inside. "I'm starting to think there might be some weight to the theory that you're actually insane," she muttered. Loki just chuckled and shut the door behind him as he trailed after her, apparently unfazed by her refusal to dignify his innuendo with a response.

* * *

"Talk to me, JARVIS. What did you find out?"

The worst part about the suits, Tony had always thought, was that no matter how much he fiddled with this and tweaked with that - adding baffles and dampeners, different materials to line the interior of his helmets - he always sounded vaguely as if he was speaking inside a tin can. At least to his own ears.

The ground sped below him at dizzying speeds, mountain ranges whipping past before he scarcely had time to name them and lakes flashing silvery like spots in an old film reel. Overlying all of this was the endless stream of data provided him by JARVIS, data his AI was busily trying to analyze.

"I picked up the presence of at least three large organisms via thermal imaging, sir. Displaying images now." JARVIS' crisp tones were as calm and unflappable as ever, in a stark counterpoint to the rising sense of dread that was squeezing Tony's gut.

Rainbow-hued pictures of Jane Foster's lab appeared before his eyes in rapid succession, nearly all showing the clearly defined outline of three humanoid figures, despite Tony having seen no one besides the two of them at Jane's place. "And the data she's been working on?" Thoroughness demanded he ask the question, but Tony knew with sickening surety the answer already.

"As intelligent as Dr. Foster is, I can calculate with what I believe to be reliable accuracy a mere 4.75% probability that she arrived at the conclusions laid out in her work independently. Furthermore, there is a strong corroboration between the formulas she is currently using and the ones worked up by Dr. Erik Selvig in the latter stages of his hypnosis."

"Shit," Tony sighed. "Put me through to Fury, JARVIS."

The phone rang only once before Nick Fury's voice barked over the internal speakers. "Stark. Did you check on Dr. Foster like I asked? What in the _hell_ is going on in New Mexico?"

"Nothing you're going to like, I can guarantee that," he replied. "Long story short - my and Selvig's suspicions were true. She doesn't look the way Barton and Selvig did, all freaky blue corpse eyes and such. But JARVIS backs me up on this - too many leaps of logic for such a short amount of time."

"God _damn_ it all. When are we going to catch a break around here?" Fury growled, and Tony could practically hear him pacing. "We can't sit on this, Tony. I'm putting together a group right now, and getting boots on the ground in New Mexico at first light."

"I know, I know. Be there in twenty," he sighed as he disconnected the call. "JARVIS, change of plans. New destination, SHIELD Central. Then get Pepper on the line, turn in-call volume down to 50%, and put in an order for a few dozen roses to be delivered ASAP."

There was a beat of silence before JARVIS responded. "It's going to be a long night, sir?"

"Yeah," Tony ground his teeth together, and pushed his suit as fast as it would go. "I think it's safe to say that. But hey...at least I'm getting out of the opera."


	10. Chapter 10 - A Gathering Storm

_Author's note: I suppose I never explicitly stated this, but I am drawing from a hodgepodge of influences for this fic - the movieverse, a bit of comics, and a dash of mythology to make my own mix. Hopefully I've done justice to each._

_And once again, thank you to everyone who leaves me feedback, or even just follows/favorites the story. You guys make it all worth it!_

_Song of the Chapter: Shelter, by The xx_

* * *

Thor knew that it was rarely a good sign when he was summoned to his father's private chambers. Dread weighed heavily on his shoulders as waited outside the door to the royal apartments for the page to announce his presence, muting the nod he gave the young boy when he gestured for Thor to enter. It was early still but his mother sat before the fire already, a large tome filling her lap that she closed at his approach.

"Thor," she said warmly as she stood, but the brightness of her smile didn't quite banish the shadows that lingered about her eyes. Not for the first time Thor was reminded that his mother was no longer a young woman...although she was as formidable as ever, and more than an equal match for his fiery father.

"Hello, Mother," he smiled back, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Where is Father?"

She gestured towards the double doors at the back of the room that were thrown wide, opening out onto a gently curving balcony that was awash in the rosy glow of morning. He could see his Father's snowy head where he bowed over the edge, fingers of light pulling gold and pink reflections from the white strands.

Concern clouded Thor's brow as he turned back to Frigga. "Is something amiss?"

Her mouth parted, and then shut on whatever she had been about to say. Great coils of her bronze hair shifted as she tilted her head, and sadness deepened the faint lines of her face. "Just...speak with him, Thor."

His boot-heels punished the floor as he strode away from her, anxiousness hastening his steps. Spreading out beyond the half-moon of the balcony were the shining towers of Asgard, spires that stretched gleaming fingers towards the sky. It was an impressive display, and yet his father's unfocused eye seemed to see none of the beauty sprawled before him. He drew up beside Odin, and the gracefully carved stone of the railing was cool beneath his fingertips in stark contrast to the feverish anxiety that had gripped him since finding out where Loki was staying some days prior. He couldn't escape the surety that this call from Odin involved his wayward brother.

"Father," he greeted solemnly, and Odin stirred from his reverie. He held a thick piece of parchment in his hands, and the eye that he lifted to Thor was dulled by sorrow.

"Thor," he said quietly. "My son. Thank you for coming so quickly."

Thor pressed one hand to his father's shoulder. "What is it? What is wrong? You must tell me what has the two of you so out of sorts."

Odin drew a heavy breath. "It is Loki."

The bottom fell from Thor's stomach, and his numb hand slid from Odin's shoulder. "What has happened? Has he harmed Jane?"

"Nay, son. Calm yourself," Odin reassured him, and Thor found his breath again. "Your brother faces a far different foe than your ire." Odin tapped the piece of writing he held against his other palm, and then offered it to Thor. "Read for yourself."

The crisp weight of the letter was heavy in his fingers as he took it, the fine grain of the skin it had been scraped from still showing where the light shone through. Thick lines were scrawled over its surface in black ink, forming the guttural words of the jotun language, and Thor's brows furrowed as he worked out the unfamiliar language. It was ironic to wish so while reading a letter about him and his absence, but not for the first time Thor felt the loss of his brother sharply. He had always paid more attention to their tutors than Thor...had rescued in these moments.

At long last he raised his head from the letter, and stared aghast at Odin. "This cannot be real."

Odin pulled a hand over the features of his face, as if he could simply wipe away his exhaustion. "I only wish it were not."

Thor couldn't rein in the fit of pique that had him tossing the parchment at his feet. "This...this Skadi, she oversteps herself. How dare she make such demands? How dare she make such threats!? This is beyond her scope, beyond her power!"

"Is it? Perhaps," Odin allowed, then shook his head in resignation. "But it is not beyond her rights to demand."

"You cannot be serious!" Thor exploded. "I will not make a sacrifice of my brother. Father, you must tell her no."

"And risk war, once again? It will not be our realm that suffers if her demands are not met."

"You cannot simply acquiesce though!" He broke into restless motion, pacing what small space the balcony allowed. "The throne of Asgard should not be so easily swayed, lest others take advantage of us."

Odin was quiet some moments as he tracked Thor's path. "Then you would choose war?" he asked at last.

Thor flinched at the disappointment in his father's voice, and slowed to a halt. "It is an impossible choice. How can you ask me to make it?" he asked miserably.

"Then there is only one solution," Odin pronounced heavily. "You must retrieve your brother, and let him answer it for himself."

Thor swore he felt the scar of his belly wound throb, phantom pain merging with the still-real pain of betrayal. He turned from Odin to stare out at the delicate skyline, knuckles white as he clutched the railing desperately. "I fear what his answer will be."

His father's hand was heavier than Mjolnir as it came to rest on his shoulder. "As do I, my son."

Thor blinked against the tears that pressed hotly against the backs of his eyes. Would it truly end this way? False hope dashed cruelly, and his brother forever ripped away? To acquiesce meant losing his brother. To deny meant losing what little faith they still had in him. Whichever choice Loki made would tear him apart.

Tear them _all_ apart.

Odin pressed two small stones in his hands, rough runes carved into their smooth surface. "Take these. When you are ready, crush the first to bring you to him. The second to return you both to me."

Thor closed his fingers around the rocks and felt the tingle of dark magic seeping from the etched lines. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and he ran a critical gaze over Odin, taking in the deep lines that framed his mouth and eyes. "What did these cost you, Father?"

Odin sighed, and suddenly looked every one of his countless years. "Too much." He glanced through the open doorway at the bowed head of Frigga, pale where she sat and stared sightlessly into the dancing fire, and his lips thinned. "Too much, and yet never enough." He swung his faded gaze back to meet his son's, their blue eyes mirror images of each other. "Bring him back to us, Thor."

With a resolute nod Thor ground the first stone into dust within his fist, and the world around him exploded in a starburst of light.

* * *

For the first time in a long time, Jane found herself with nothing to do. Her work was in Tony Stark's hands, waiting for him to take things to the next step, leaving her twiddling her thumbs. Her usual evening activities of processing the reams of data her equipment collected seemed almost redundant at this point, and she wandered the lab restlessly, at a loss for how to occupy herself.

For lack of better options, she snagged a pair of binoculars and shrugged into a light cardigan to ward off the evening chill that had crept over the desert. It had been far too long since she'd simply enjoyed the stars for what they were, and not where they could take her. Once outside she hauled herself up the iron ladder bolted to the side of her building, rails cool beneath her fingers. It might have been a new place that SHIELD had found for her, but at least some things weren't so different from her old lab.

She'd hauled an old firepit up that ladder one evening in pieces, first the base and then the wide dish, but chairs were beyond her ability to move alone. The brazier sat dark and unlit in the center of the roof, flanked on one side by the bank of solar panels that kept her place running and by a pile of sturdy outdoor cushions on the other. They weren't particularly comfortable compared to a proper chair, but they kept her from sitting directly on the hard roof. Everything was silvered by the watery moonlight that poured down from the clear sky overhead, casting the tilted panels and the base of the cistern that squatted on the far side of the roof into sharp relief.

She'd just flopped onto the nest of cushions and was lifting the binoculars to peer at the sky when she caught a shiver of motion from the corner of her eye. Leaning against the cistern was Loki, his Aesir clothes and sable hair blending into the shadows that puddled about its base so well she could only see his face, white like the smudge of the moon reflected on dark water.

He scarcely seemed to notice her presence, and so she busied herself adjusting the focus of her lenses.

"Tell me something the mortals say about the stars," Loki said suddenly, his voice carrying clearly on the soft breeze across the distance between them.

She blinked up, startled, and wondered what sort of things she could tell a being that had visited them - had watched distant stars rise and set over unknown planets. She, with her telescopes and her charts and her fumbling grasp of the universe...what insight could she offer? Numbers and cold facts were hardly the essence of humanity.

"Do you see this star, here?" She sighted down her arm, pointed to the south at a star that winked ice-blue. He followed the path of her finger and nodded.

"It's the brightest star in the sky. We call it Sirius. But when I was in Norway, I learned that some people called it _Lokabrenna_."

"_Lokabrenna_...Loki's torch?" he translated, his flawless pronunciation doing the foreign word a justice she never could. His expression soured. "Because I bring the fires of Ragnarok, according to your stories."

She grimaced and wondered just how many of her mythology books he'd devoured. Any of them that mentioned himself, she was willing to wager. "They're just stories," she reminded him.

Through the dark she felt his piercing gaze as he turned it upon her. "You've made it abundantly clear what you thought of the story. And yet now you dismiss it so easily?"

She sighed and wondered why he was so hung up on this idea. "Reshaping the world isn't always a bad thing, Loki." She raised the binoculars to her eyes and peered at the star, hanging large like a pale sapphire in her lenses. Overwhelming every star around it through sheer force of presence. "You've changed mine." She let out a small laugh, and glanced at him over the top of the eyepieces. "I'm not sure I can ever go back to calling that star plain Sirius now."

His dark lashes fell, closing off those ancient eyes, and she wondered if she'd said something wrong. Offended him somehow. Jane lowered the binoculars and began to stand. It had to be hard enough for him, being around her and this place every hour of every day. She could understand the value of having privacy sometimes. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think to ask if you wanted to be alone. I didn't mean to intrude. "

His pale gaze flickered in her direction and then back out to the stars, the only part of him that moved. "Please, sit," he said. "It is your home, Jane. I have the entirety of the cosmos if I wish to be by myself."

There was an undercurrent to his words she couldn't place, something that seemed to hover between wistful and wry. She could only imagine how bored he must be here, bound by honor to a planet he loathed when he had the universe itself at his fingertips. "I doubt that it will take Tony Stark long to come up with something," she assured him as she folded back onto her cushion. "You won't have to be stuck here much longer."

She heard more than saw him shift at that, the thick rustle of leather carrying clearly in the still night air as he angled towards her. "You are so eager to be rid of me, then?"

"No!" Courtesy prompted her immediate denial, but then she took a moment to consider the question fully. If he'd asked her weeks ago...even days ago perhaps...that answer might have been a lie. But now? All she could think of was how quiet the lab had been before he came. "No," she repeated, softer but more deliberately, and the word certainly tasted like truth on her tongue.

She turned back to the sky, the night gone silent but for the mournful cry of a coyote in the distance. Overhead the stars were a glittering spill so numerous and bright they crowded out the black spaces between them. So often they had always made her feel less alone, sure that in the vast boundless reaches of them there were others, somewhere...staring up at their own skies. And yet somehow on the eve of what was the fruition of her dreams, they seemed ever so much colder. Even further out of reach.

An unexplained wave of melancholy broke over her, curling her shoulders beneath its sudden deluge. This should have been one of the happiest evenings of her life; on the cusp of discovery, nearer to seeing Thor than she'd been in months, brushing infamy with her fingertips.

So why did it suddenly all feel wrong?

The rasp of grit beneath boot-heels brought her out of her thoughts, and she glanced up to see Loki drawing nearer, his stark beauty turned fey by the starlight. Not for the first time she was struck by the difference between he and his brother - opposites incarnate. Fire and shadow. Power and grace. Strength and subtlety.

Beloved and outcast.

He stopped just shy of the empty fire, hands clasped behind his back. She felt the press of his regard even without meeting his eyes. The binoculars bit into her clenched fingers as his familiar cedar scent brushed past her, carried aloft by the errant breeze that toyed with the ends of his hair. Would she ever get used to the visceral punch of it? That same coyote howled, and for some time it was the only sound that broke the still night air.

"What will you do, after this is all over?" she wondered aloud.

Surprise flashed across his face, as if the question hadn't really occurred to him before. His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, and he tipped his head upwards. "I suppose I hadn't really thought that far," he allowed. "None of this was planned. I had only ever seen my attempt on Midgard ending one of two ways - in my rule, or in my death. But this...this third option?" He swept one hand in an arc, encompassing the desert and her lab. "I had not foreseen this."

Jane's heart faltered, knocked off-balance by the quiet admission. What drove a man to make a bet like that? To put all of your chips on the table in a wild gambit? It was either madness or desperation.

"You...are welcome here, you know. Whenever you like," she startled herself by offering. And not just herself, if the sharp glance he angled in her direction was any indication.

"Why would you offer me hospitality?" he asked, skepticism ripe in his tone.

Jane shrugged, and wondered the same herself. He was arrogant, cruel at times, selfish and manipulative. But...he challenged her. Pried free truths she'd long ago buried, and forced her to examine them. Pushed her to stand up for herself. Made her laugh, and had given her a gift none other could.

Embraced her like a drowning man.

"I think it will be rather boring without you around," Jane answered, half of a smile tugging at her lips.

He was silent some moments, eyes inscrutable as he stared at her. "You should not be so eager to offer your hearth to the wolf, Jane."

She sighed, and raked back errant strands blown into her view, peering up at him from between her fingers as she did. "You don't scare me, Loki."

"I don't?" He arched a brow and drifted a few steps closer. "You called me a monster once," he accused, with a hint of bitterness.

"You're a lot of things, not all of them nice," she said softly, then shook her head. "But you're not a monster. I never should have said that."

He froze in his tracks. "And how would you know that I'm not?"

She held his brittle gaze carefully. "Because I think that a true monster would care less about being called one."

Jane heard the breath leave him in a rush, as if her words had been a blow to the stomach. He spun on one heel and paced away, leaving her with the silent expanse of his back. When the moments stretched into minutes and he still hadn't stirred, she dared to call his name. "Loki?"

His bent head lifted at the sound, and he turned fever-bright eyes on her. "Jane."

Her name sounded unsteady on his lips and concern pulled her to her feet, urging her across the space that separated them. She laid a hesitant hand on his arm, worry pinching her brows together. "Did I say something wrong?"

Dark lashes trembled on his cheeks as his chest rose and fell, and beneath her fingers he shuddered, like a horse on the verge of breaking away. Bewilderment softened the lines of his face when he answered. "No. Somehow...you never do."

The wonder in his voice was like a fist around her chest. The silver glow of night picked out the angles and planes of his face, sluicing away the mask he always wore, leaving him bare to her eyes. She was struck by how young he really looked beneath the layers of arrogance and suspicion - not some ageless legend after all, at least not in this moment. He was just a man like almost any other.

And yet, nothing like any other she'd met.

Perhaps it was true lunacy that had her cupping his cheek in her palm. Madness of the moon that lifted her to her toes and pressed her lips to his.

Or perhaps she just would have done anything at that moment to sweep the lost look from his eyes.

His mouth was slack with shock beneath her own and she drew back in mortification. Had she read him wrong? Shame had a moment to swamp her, flushing her face bright red, before Loki's hand wrapped itself around hers and pulled it from his cheek. She tried in vain to draw her fingers back, turning her face away from his in her embarrassment, but rather than relinquishing he pressed her palm to his chest. Beneath the layers of leather and fabric she felt the fierce cadence of his heart, saw it echoed in the gap of his collar where it arrowed over his throat. His gaze dropped to hers and she was trapped by the jadefire of his eyes, by the answering warmth they kindled in her belly.

"Would that I could despise you for this," he rasped out, squeezing the fingers lain over his racing heart for emphasis. His other hand rose to smooth back the strands that had blown into her face, kicked up by the rising breeze. The pad of his thumb brushed gently over the skin behind her ear, lingering as he cradled her head and slowly lowered his mouth towards hers. Jane's breath hitched as her limbs went liquid and flames spilled through her veins.

He was only a whisper away when his head jerked up like a hound scenting the wind, and his grip tightened convulsively before releasing her. She stumbled at the sudden loss of support and rounded on him angrily, only to have the words die unspoken in her mouth at the tense cast of his features.

She was suddenly aware that the breeze had become a wind, one that carried the sharp tang of ozone on it, and that a bank of clouds was rushing towards them, lit from within by the constant crackle of lightning. As the wind whipped itself into an ever-greater frenzy Jane held her hair back as best she could, her watering eyes almost missing when Loki was enveloped by the golden glow of his magic. When it cleared, a stranger had taken his place - with great cruel horns arcing above the hard gleam of his glare, and a cape as green as poison dancing madly in the shifting air. Any soft hint of the man she'd just embraced had been swallowed up within the burnished armor he now wore.

"Thor," Loki spat over the rising wind, and the word punched a hole through her heart.


	11. Chapter 11 - An Assumption

_Author's Note: This really would probably benefit from me staring at it a few days longer, but it's turned my brain to mush and I'm tired of looking at it - so here you go._

_I'd like to thank everyone for the reviews/follows/favorites, as always you make the effort worthwhile. And I'd like to dedicate this chapter to startraveller776. You know why, dear._

_Please don't hate me for that._

_Song(s) of the Chapter: Hurricane, by MS MR & Lover, You Should Have Come Over, by Jeff Buckley_

* * *

It's never over

She's the tear that hangs inside my soul forever

_- __Jeff __Buckley_

Change rode in once again on the boiling clouds of the storm to turn Loki's life upside down.

He scarcely noticed the weight of his armor as he strode to the edge of the rooftop, summoned almost without a thought at the first hint that this storm was a less than natural one. His hands felt strangely empty without the scepter he'd been given by the Chitauri, a weakness he was almost embarrassed by. He needed no crutch to face Thor, no alien weapon to compensate for some perceived fault. His magic and wits had been, and always would be, enough.

Like a meteor hurtling to earth Loki saw the crackling streak of Thor plummet from the depths of the thunderheads. Dust and pebbles sprayed into the churning air when he landed, one knee bent to absorb the shock of impact and Mjolnir clutched in his grasp. His scarlet cape and silver armor were saturated with color even in this half-light of night, brilliant despite the curtain of grit as he strode forcefully to the base of the building. He looked magnificent, as always...and Jane's tiny gasp as she crept across the roof was like a thorn in Loki's heart.

"Loki. Brother," Thor called up to him, and his powerful voice carried easily over the collapsing tempest. The stern cast of his features melted into a smile as Jane's dark head appeared by Loki's shoulder, and his voice grew warm. "Jane. I deeply regret that I was not able to see you sooner. You are well, I trust? My brother has not treated you ill?"

Loki steeled his heart against the small smile that had bloomed on Jane's face. "I am," she replied. "He has not."

And it was right _there_, the moment in which all it would take was a few choice words, and he could lash the joy off of Thor's face with the truth of Jane's duplicity. His mouth was open, the syllables nearly on his tongue, when he felt the clutch of fingers even through his layers of armor - Jane's small hand wrapping reflexively around his arm for balance as she climbed to the very edge of the roof. Reaching for him without thought, with every confidence he'd be there.

And the ruinous phrases were suddenly too large to fit through his throat.

"Thor," Loki inclined his head instead and sneered. "Still clinging to false labels, I see. Do they lighten the burden of your guilt?"

Thor's face fell, and the sparkle faded from his blue eyes as he tore them away from Jane. "You cannot simply wish something to be untrue, Loki. We are brothers in all the ways that matter."

"Pretty words are my specialty, Thor. They suit you ill," he scoffed, arms crossing over his chest. "Why are you here?"

Thor shifted Mjolnir, relaxing his grip upon seeing Loki's momentary willingness to parlay. "To take you home, to Asgard."

"There is no place in Asgard for me, not anymore. You know that as well as I." The words were an irony Loki had been aware of for some time. He would forever consider Asgard his home, regardless of where he was - but it no longer was open to him. He was forever an exile.

With an easy grace he leaped from the roof to stand before Thor, startling a gasp from Jane. He heard as she scrambled over to the ladder bolted to the side of the building and clambered down, glancing over to see her huddling against the building a safe distance away but keeping the two men within view and earshot. Curious as always...but prudent as ever. His lips curled with amusement at her predictability.

He began to circle Thor warily, a wolf eyeing the newcomer. He didn't miss the hateful shackles that swayed and clinked together softly at Thor's waist. It seemed they truly meant to have him back one way or another.

"Whatever spell they've cobbled together to bring you here won't last indefinitely," Loki observed, continuing to pace a measured ring about Thor. He turned to keep Loki in view, but didn't seem eager to offer violence - Mjolnir stayed firmly at his side. "You're wasting time, Thor."

Somehow that got a reaction from Thor. His brows snapped downwards, and worry deepened the lines about his mouth. "Do not make light of the magic that brought me here. I fear it has cost Mother dearly."

Loki narrowed his eyes at Thor, a surge of protective affection for the one Asgardian he still cared about rising in his throat. "How could Odin have let her do such a foolish thing? What can possibly be so important?"

"_Eptirmál_," Thor said shortly, and Loki blanched at the archaic word. He knew it all too well...a demand for vengeance.

"Who would dare?" He asked hoarsely, but he knew the answer. Had been running from the answer for so very long, across the universe.

"The new queen of the Jotun, Skaldi." Thor's shoulders slumped, and his eyes flattened with despair. "She demands recompense for what you did to Jotunheim. If we do not give you to her, she vows to raze whatever realms you may hide in until you are found."

He would rather die than let Thor see the fear that ran cold claws down his spine. "The Jotun are scattered and decimated. She can scarcely have the resources for such a mad quest," Loki waved a hand dismissively.

Thor shook his head. "Do not be so sure, brother. Thousands were lost, but those remaining have rallied behind her cause. You are more than vengeance to her now - capturing you will solidify her claim to the throne. And we know not what secret passages they can travel between realms."

"So I am to be thrown to the wolves, to save your own hides." Loki's mouth twisted bitterly. "There was a time, not so long ago, in which you would have raised your glass to toast my deeds."

"We decide nothing. Father demands you make the choice yourself. Jotunheim is no threat to Asgard...but what of the other realms?" Thor's hands clenched at his side, as if he fought the urge to throttle sense into Loki. "What of Earth, the people here? You would see them bleed for your crimes? You say that I have changed, and you are right. I no longer have the luxury of being selfish."

It stung, more than he'd ever admit, to have those same words of Jane's thrown in his face by Thor.

"You would set me as Earth's champion then, in a roundabout way?" Loki threw back his head with a bark of humorless laughter. "Someone please save me from the irony." But without permission his eyes slid to the slender form of Jane, drawn in stark relief by the moon against the pale concrete of her building. So very fragile, so very mortal.

He had a moment of madness, the frantic urge to simply snatch her and run. Tear a hole in the universe and hide her away, hide the both of them away until the world made sense once again. The Earth could burn, for all he cared, as long as she was safe.

But she would never forgive him that cowardice.

As if his thoughts had summoned her, Jane drifted closer to the two men. "Thor," she called, arms hugging about her midsection. "There must be some other way." Fear slashed a line between her brows, and her gaze flickered between the both of them.

Thor spared a smile for her, cupping her chin in his wide hand. "You have been most kind Jane, to shelter Loki these past weeks. But this is beyond you. Believe me when I say, I wish there were some other way."

A steady mechanical thrum cut through their conversation, so low that Loki felt it in his chest and through the bones of the earth where he stood. The brilliant sky was marred by the looming silhouette of an airplane, black against the stars like one of Odin's fabled ravens itself. Loki knew that plane - had ridden in that plane, or one just like it. Dread churned his insides, and he was unable to tear his eyes away from its path.

"How has SHIELD found you?" Thor demanded of Loki, his eyes also fixed on the approaching warbird.

How indeed?

He had a nauseating suspicion, one that burned his throat as the bile crept up it and he panted for air, fearing he might truly be sick.

He wrenched his attention from the aircraft and swung in Jane's direction, taking a handful of deliberate steps towards her on legs that had turned wooden. "Oh bravo, Jane." He flung the words at her like droplets of venom and she recoiled from the barrage, staring up at him in confusion.

"What?" she quavered, and Thor grasped her shoulder to steady her as she stumbled back from the fury Loki felt carving itself onto his face.

"Outplayed by an amateur," Loki snarled. "Is this what all your talk of hospitality was about? Just another way to stall, until they showed up someday?" He stalked ever closer to Jane, heedless of the warning arm Thor threw up between them and raked her with a derisive glare, his lip curling in a sneer. "I didn't truly believe you had it in you."

She shoved Thor's arm aside and reached for him. "Loki, you don't think that I-"

He shrank back from her questing fingers. "_Don__'__t __touch __me__!_" His voice shook even as he shouted at her, and he hated himself for it. Hated himself for faltering at the tears that shimmered in her eyes. This world, this _woman_...had somehow turned him soft. "Deceiver," he spat, and Jane's breath hitched.

"I didn't!" she protested. "I admit, I planned to at first. But then...then-"

"Enough!" Loki roared, his fingers hooking into claws at his side as if he could tear her words from the air. "I will not listen to your lies!"

He was dimly aware of Thor's fingers squeezing his shoulder. "Have a care how you speak to her, Loki," he warned, voice soft but threaded with steel.

He was drunk on anger now though, reckless and eager for targets. He knocked Thor's hand away and crowded up to his face, their eyes level despite the differences in their build. "You stand up for your ladylove?" Loki drawled the last word, made a mockery of it to spark at the fuse of Thor's temper, knowing better than anyone in the nine realms how to set it off. He slid his eyes in Jane's direction, trailed his gaze lasciviously up and down her exaggeratedly. "It's easy to see how she's wound you around her finger. She _does_ have such sweet lips."

Jane's small cry of dismay carried even over the growing noise of the approaching aircraft, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, as if to hold in the sound. Loki's dark chuckle was cut off by Thor's grip closing about his neck like a steel trap, his face gnarled by barely checked rage as he dragged Loki until they were nose to nose.

"How dare you besmirch her honor with your insinuations?" Thor growled, and shook him for emphasis. "I will wrest an apology from you if I must!"

Loki kindled a crackling sphere of magic between his palms and shoved it against Thor's armored torso where it mushroomed, casting a sickly green glow over the both of their faces that turned them ghoulish in its unearthly light. Thor had time only to glance down before the bubble ruptured explosively, stumbling Loki backwards and throwing Thor to the ground some distance away. He sprang to his feet snarling like a wounded lion, golden hair floating upwards in the wind that began to kick up as he snagged Mjolnir from his waist.

"Do I lie?" Loki called over the rising currents as he righted himself, green fire crackling about his fingertips as he held his power at the ready. For once in their lives he was the one spoiling for a fight - choking on the twisting emotions that filled the empty spaces of his lungs, desperate to distract himself from the feeling that he was drowning. "_Do __I_? Ask her yourself, Thor!"

The silver disc of Mjolnir spinning in Thor's grip faltered, then resumed its circling as he shook his head resolutely. "I will not be poisoned by your games, Loki. And I won't be distracted. You must come home with me." He tensed, the muscles in his legs bunching as he crouched to leap back into the fight.

"He doesn't lie," came Jane's abrupt cry and both men turned in her direction, Thor so suddenly he nearly lost his balance. Her shoulders were rounded in resignation, her lips thin with unhappiness, but her chin was lifted in that tragic pride of hers that Loki knew so well. "It's true. I...I'm sorry, Thor," she finished miserably.

Even the high whine of engines as the airplane set down on the flat expanse of desert couldn't drown out Thor's wordless howl of rage as he hurled Mjolnir at Loki. He saw the weapon coming, the metal glint of it winking promises of agony at him, and rather than dodge he took a step forward.

Into the blow.

It hit him right in the stomach, snatched him from his feet and curled him about the broad head of the hammer until he slammed into the concrete wall of the lab. It stole his breath, turned his guts to fire and his bones to liquid, and he embraced the pain - because it was a far better hurt to feel than the beast that was gnawing at his heart.

Laughter bubbled out his mouth at that, wild humorless mirth with more than an edge of hysteria to it that crushed his chest in its grip. When it had played itself out and he could gasp for air once again he peeled himself from the cracked wall and looked up, to see both Thor and Jane staring at him in dismay.

A woman's voice crackled over a loudspeaker as the belly of the plane cracked open, spilling figures into the night. "Loki of Asgard! Surrender yourself peaceably into SHIELD custody, and we offer you a fair trial."

Like a reoccurring nightmare familiar faces came into focus as floodlights popped on, washing the rocky ground in cold white light. The timeless soldier, his former thrall Clint Barton, the wily redhead. There was no sign of the green cur, which drained some of the tension from Loki's shoulders, but Tony Stark was also conspicuously absent. Until a red and gold streak blasted into the sky from the far side of the airplane and came to hover over the two Asgardians, heat blasting down to ripple both their cloaks.

"Hey, Abel!" Tony's voice sounded odd translated through the metal and speakers of his visor, but clear enough in the now-silent night. "Can't you guys keep Cain here under wraps for more than a month?"

Thor's puzzled look turned into a smile that looked forced, to Loki's familiar eye. "Friends! It is good to see you, but I fear that I cannot allow you to take Loki. This is strictly an Asgardian affair."

"That's funny," chimed in Steve Rogers. "Because from where I stand, you sure look an awful lot like you're on Earth to me."

Thor turned mournful eyes on him. "Do not force my hand on this," he pleaded. "There are events beyond your knowledge at play here."

Anger flared again in Loki's belly, as he watched while they stood around bickering over his fate as if they were fishwives scrabbling for the last turnip at market. At least, in some twisted way, SHIELD wanted him for his own actions. To Thor he was simply what he had always been to the Aesir - a pawn, little better than a bargaining chip in their endless political games.

"I will go nowhere!" he snarled at last, and gathered the sparks of his magic into sizzling bolts he hurled at Thor and the Avengers.

Chaos descended on the desert. An arrow whistled past his cheek as he dodged at the last moment, nicking the ends off a hank of his hair. Hatred gouged deep lines in Barton's face as he reached for a new arrow, and Loki tossed another fragment of energy in his direction, forcing the man to duck. Overhead Thor had knocked Tony off-course with a toss of Mjolnir, the blast he'd been aiming down at Loki sailing wide to tear a chunk from the earth. Pebbles and dirt splashed up to rain down in a hail of missiles, and Jane shrieked as she scrabbled out of the way of the deluge.

"Stop it, all of you!" he heard her cry, but her voice could scarcely dent the din of battle. "Loki, just run away!"

But it too late for that. He'd jabbed the hornet's nest, and he welcomed the oncoming sting.

"Natasha!" Tony called down, pointing at Jane as she tried to skirt the battle and head for the safety of her lab. "Grab her! There's no telling what kind of voodoo mind-trips Loki's put her through."

The redhead nodded sharply and darted across the fight, making a beeline for the physicist and catching her easily. Jane twisted in Natasha's arms, brown hair tangling about her face as she thrashed, but her struggles were useless against the trained agent.

"That hardly seems a courteous way to treat your informant," Loki chided snidely as he threw up a handful of doppelgangers about the battlefield. Steve's shield sliced one into golden wisps and an arrow shredded a second as Loki wove a path across the fight, drawn against his will towards Jane and her captor. From the corner of his eye he saw Thor crash into the side of Captain America, the two tangling on the ground as the blue shield clattered uselessly beside them.

"Oh, please. I figured that one out all on my own, thank you very much," Tony scoffed as he systematically blasted Loki's mirror images back into smoke. "See, your problem is, you think you're so much more clever than humans. And yet somehow we keep figuring you out." He punctuated his jibe with another pulse from his palm that disintegrated the last of Loki's copies.

An icy wash of horror froze Loki mid-step, and his gaze snapped to Jane's like iron to a lodestone. Shame was a cold fist that wrapped tightly about his heart at her bedraggled appearance. Dust coated her delicate features, brown save for the white slashes of tear tracks that traced down her cheeks. Natasha had her nearly at the open belly of the plane now, twisting one of Jane's arms sharply behind her back for control as she frogmarched her to the ramp.

Through it all Jane kept her eyes locked on his, craning her neck to look over her shoulder, sorrow and pain and fear as clear as day in their brown depths despite the distance between them.

Her every emotion scrawled plainly on her face, guileless as ever. The only person who'd always been brutally honest with him, and given the slightest chance he'd doubted her.

A rueful laugh limped from his lips. He'd always thought that stabbing Thor would be the most wretched thing he'd done.

He snatched another of Barton's arrows from the air as it just grazed his cheekbone, drawing a faint line of red over the skin that parted sweetly beneath its keen edge. His fingers tightened compulsively, snapping the fiberglass into shards that dug into his numb palms. Blood welled between his fingers in fat ruby drops that the dry earth eagerly drank, but he felt none of it. He was frantically cobbling together plans, thoughts - some way to free himself and Jane from the snare that had sprung closed around them.

Another blast from Tony gouged a hole in the earth where he'd just stood, cape twitching with the motion of his dodge, and Loki growled with frustration. He couldn't think, too much was going on and his thoughts were buzzing about madly like a swarm of flies. Snarling, he threw up a shield of magic that rippled on the edge of sight and the following white streak of energy from the Iron Man suit bounced off it harmlessly. Hot on its heels, another shaft came whistling from Barton's bow, almost impossible to see against the night sky despite the bright lights. Loki shifted the wall he'd thrown up, trying to angle the arrow back at Captain America, who'd wrestled his way out from under Thor and was readying his shield to toss again.

The arrow skittered off the invisible barrier, but it didn't head in the direction of the blue and red man. He scarcely had time to track its path, to throw his hands up and try flinging a surge of magic at the flying bolt in a desperate attempt to knock it off course when he saw where it was heading - but he was too slow.

Green sparks had just begun to sizzle about his fingers when the feathered end of the arrow sprouted from Jane's chest, like a black flower.

"Jane!" he screamed into the silence that had fallen over the impossibly still night, and it felt as if her name had torn itself free from somewhere deep in his belly, leaving a hole where his stomach had once been. His cry was echoed by Thor, who took off at a dead sprint over the sand toward her slowly sagging body held up only by a horrified Natasha. Loki snatched a handful of reality and tore it asunder, stepping through the gap and coming out at Jane's side in time to catch her limp weight as Natasha wrestled with it.

Blood garbed his hands in scarlet gloves as he lowered Jane to the ground, falling heavily to his knees beside her. Her lashes were dark curves against her pallid skin that hid her eyes from his view, and the pulse in the hollow of her throat fluttered like a crippled bird. Thor skidded to a stop beside him, and his hopeless moan was a blade in Loki's gut.

They'd both fought too many battles to not know the slow creep of death when they saw it.

"You've got ten seconds to get him out of here, Thor," Tony bit out, anger sharpening every syllable. The white circles set in his palms brightened with a low whine as he aimed them both at Loki, and Loki saw his death reflected in the cold, soulless visor of the metal suit.

He was knocked aside by Thor's arm just as the suit loosed its fire, sent sprawling into the dirt by the blow. The dust of the desert coated his face and mouth, turned them as dry as his heart felt in that moment. From the corner of his eye he saw a puddle of red creeping over the hard ground.

Jane's blood. Flowing faster than the parched sand could drink it up.

He tried to roll over but he was trapped by the cage of Thor's arms. Thor's face was pinched as his gaze flickered back and forth between Loki and the prone form of Jane, until with an anguished cry he snatched something small and white from a pouch at his belt and crushed it in one fist. The powder of it sifted down to coat Loki's face, and as the first grains touched his skin the world was swallowed up in an explosion of light and he felt the tug behind his navel of travel between realms.

They crashed, tangled and gasping onto the floor of the throne room, Odin seated in the great shining throne with Frigga beside him. He thrashed blindly beneath the weight of Thor, eyes still wide and fixed by the image of the dry desert earth bejeweled with Jane's blood.

"Let me go, Thor! I have to go back!" Was that his own voice - that high, piteous thing? There was no air in the room, nothing to fill his lungs with save the scalding stench of panic. "I can fix this, I can fix it! I can fix _her_!" he babbled over and over as he tried to shove Thor away.

He was dimly aware of the hard squares of Thor's armor as he tore his nails upon them, bloodied hands scrabbling slickly against Thor's chainmail as they rolled on the floor. Both too far gone for weapons or magic - just mindless wrestling.

"Brother, _please_!"Loki's cry cracked at the seams.

Odin and Frigga shot from their seats, the queen pressing one hand to her mouth, and a handful of courtiers gaped at the spectacle. Thor's knee was in his gut and Thor's hands were on his shoulders and he was shaking Loki over and over, rattling Loki's teeth together and jostling loose the tears that pressed hotly against his eyelids. Through his wavering vision he could see Thor's features contort with grief. "They will kill you!" Thor roared and his head fell, chest heaving in great gasping breaths as he pinned Loki to the floor. When Thor lifted his face again, his blue eyes swam with sorrow and his voice was a shadow of itself. "Do not ask this of me, brother. I cannot lose you as well."

All the fight drained from Loki in a rush of tears and he fell limply back against the polished marble of the floor, cool stone soothing against his hot face as his armor melted away. No one stirred, or dared speak. The harsh rasp of his own breath filled his ears, rushing in and out as it had for a thousand years - as it would for thousands more - drowning out every other sound save the muffled sobbing of his mother.


	12. Chapter 12 - A Choice

_Author's Note: I jinxed myself by telling some people I update on Mondays and Thursdays - this will probably be the only update this week as I head out of town this weekend._

_Song of the Chapter - To Pluto's Moon, by My Brightest Diamond_

* * *

The first thing Jane noticed when she awoke was the pain - a clawed, fanged beast that crouched heavy on her chest and punished her for every breath she drew.

The second was that she was alone.

She lay in a bed with crisp white sheets that were stiff beneath her numbed limbs and fingertips, tangled in a skein of tubes and wires. Soft beeps from the monitors scattered about wove over the subtle hum of a fan moving air through the vents. Sleep gummed her eyes as she blinked around at the grey concrete room. Empty, soulless, and devoid of character. There was no window, no TV to break the flat monotony - only an assortment of medical equipment and a single unoccupied chair pushed against the wall. Even the air smelled wrong for a hospital, without a hint of the acrid tang of disinfectant to be found. She'd spent countless days crammed inside hospital rooms, watching her mother wither away. She was practically an expert on them by now. Wherever she was now was like no institution she'd ever seen before.

A weak cough splintered what small comfort she found inside the haze she knew was drug-fueled, raking her sternum and throat with what felt like splintered glass. She tried to remember what had brought her to this place, but it was a blur. There had been Loki. And Thor. SHIELD. An argument, and a fight. And then...her memory tattered, like a moth-eaten tapestry. Fragments were clear, here and there - agony in her chest, as bitingly cold as an icicle. The sticky wet feeling of her own blood, her name being called. Flying over the desert, the ground speeding below her so fast she had felt like a shooting star.

A quiet click drew her eyes to the door as it swung open, and she nearly wept with relief when Erik Selvig strode through the doorway. Exhaustion pulled heavily at his face and shoulders, bruised the skin beneath his eyes and washed him in an awful pallor under the cold fluorescent lights - but it was a familiar face, and she could have wept with relief. The wrapped sandwich he carried in one hand fell from his slack fingers as he gaped at her blinking face.

"Jane!" he cried as he covered the room in a handful of great strides, food abandoned on the floor. A grin split his face, and he gingerly clasped her hand between both of his own. "You're awake! You've had us all so worried."

She tried for an answer, but her parched throat rebelled at the idea of speech. Weakly she rolled her head and spied a pitcher of water on the small table beside her bed. Erik followed her gaze and reached for the container, pouring a bit of water into a small cup and dropping a straw into it. "Of course you're thirsty, I should have realized." He held the straw to her lips and she drank greedily, the crisp water washing away some of the stinging in her throat.

"W-where are we?" she finally managed after falling back against the pillow, exhausted from even that small effort.

"In the infirmary, at SHIELD Central in New York City," Erik replied as he dragged the chair over to her bedside and sat with a sigh. "After you were injured, Tony Stark managed to fly you to the hospital in Las Cruces in a matter of minutes. Probably the only thing that saved your life. They told me that arrow had nicked your aorta. If it had been a bullet you would have died. Fortunately the arrow stayed in place and helped to keep the bleeding to a minimum. Still..." Erik's face grew somber, and he patted her hand again, mindful of the needle taped to the back of it. "It's a miracle you survived. The nurse here told me only one in ten people survive an injury like that. After you were stabilized they transported you from Las Cruces to here."

She'd been shot? With an _arrow_? Who even used arrows anymore? Carefully she tilted her view down and took thorough stock of her injuries. A huge square of gauze was taped to her chest, sticking up above the neckline of the flimsy gown she wore. The sheer size of the bandage nearly made her blanch.

Erik hadn't been lying. It really did seem she'd barely escaped death.

"And where are Loki and Thor?" she wondered.

Erik's mouth hardened into an unforgiving line. "Gone back to Asgard we assume, thank God. Jane, I knew nothing good would ever come from being involved with them. I never should have let you go back after Thor that first time." His head shook from side to side sadly. "Your father would have my head if he knew what had happened to you because of them."

She opened her mouth, tried to summon the energy to protest his vehemence, but there seemed to be some vast chasm between her mind and her tongue. Fatigue tugged at her eyelids, each blink lasting longer and longer. The door swung open again, and a scrub-clad nurse was all business as she entered the room.

"Dr. Selvig, would you excuse us?" she asked, the picture of civility but her firm tone brooked no argument. "If Dr. Foster is awake I should check her IV and medications, and change her dressing."

The urge to argue lingered about his eyes, but with a tight nod Erik stood and relinquished her hand. "I'll be back later. Maybe bring you some books or something?"

She tried her best for a smile at that. "Thank you."

As the door closed behind him, a warmer look thawed the nurse's severe features. "He's a sweet man," she told Jane as she bustled about, checking the readouts on a few of the monitors. "Been here every day since you arrived. I think he would have slept here if we hadn't kicked him out."

She turned kind brown eyes on Jane and fussed with the feed valve on her IV. "How are you feeling? Is your pain manageable? If you need more medication, you can press this button here." Her hands hovered over the neckline of Jane's gown. "Let's take a look at that incision."

Jane winced as the tape peeled gently from her skin, painful despite the nurse's best effort. Beneath was a long angry slash of red skin that traced right down the center of her chest, skin puckered slightly around the metal staples that held the edges of the wound together. She licked her dry lips and wry humor curved her mouth. "I look like Frankenstein's monster," she sighed.

Sympathy wrinkled the nurse's brow. "There's no way around it, you'll have quite the scar."

She laid a fresh set of bandages over it and soon had Jane set back to rights, just as Jane was finding it nearly impossible to keep her eyes open any longer. She drifted off into restless, drugged dreams before the nurse had even left the room.

Her rest was interrupted some time later by a wrinkled, wizened psychiatrist who shook her awake long enough to ask her what seemed like a thousand questions. She knew he was trying to see if she had truly been influenced in some way by Loki, but she was too tired and doped to muster any real guile. After an eternity he finally left, a deep scowl on his face, and she drifted back into blessed unconsciousness.

A sharp rap on her door pulled her from sleep, and she struggled with the buttons that would angle the bed higher when Tony Stark walked in. His dark eyes ran over her wan appearance, and she wanted to shrink into the pillows and hide forever. She probably hadn't bathed in days, and she was certain it had been longer than that since her hair had seen a brush.

"Well, if it isn't Lazarus herself," he quipped, and made for the chair that sat nearby. "Glad to see you've rejoined the living, Dr. Foster."

She smiled despite herself and ducked her head shyly, tucking her hair back from her face with her free hand. "Thanks to you, I hear."

He waved a hand dismissively. "You're just lucky I was there. Better than an ambulance."

The good humor of the moment dried up as a man in a long leather duster swept into the room, an eyepatch slung over a head that shone dark and hairless in the brightly lit room. His good eye was flinty and uncompromising as he swept his gaze over the two of them. "Stark," he greeted, and then jerked his head towards the door he'd just entered. "Can you give us a minute please? I need to speak to Dr. Foster."

Tony just slouched deeper into the seat and crossed his arms over his chest, arching his brows impudently. The two men stared at each other in silence for a few moments, tension gelling the air, until with a huff of irritation the visitor turned his back on the flamboyant genius. He drew up beside the bed and fixed Jane with a baleful eye, tapping a sheaf of paper against his thigh absently. There was a time, not so long ago, that she might have faltered beneath that foreboding glare - but she'd stared down a god and somehow lived to tell the tale. This man's ire couldn't hold a candle to that, and so she calmly returned his gaze.

"Dr. Foster, I'm Nick Fury. Executive director of SHIELD," he said at last, his flat voice giving nothing away. "You seem to be recovering."

"Yes, thanks to all of you," she replied. Her lip kept trying to drag itself between her teeth, and she forced herself to relax. She desperately wanted to ask after Thor and Loki, find out exactly what had happened to the two Asgardians, but she had a suspicion that Nick Fury was the last person she should try to pump for information.

He shifted the papers he held from one hand to the other. "I've just finished reading your psychiatric evaluation, Dr. Foster. The results were...inconclusive, at best."

Tony Stark's attention bounced between the two of them at that, and Jane frowned. Did they still believe that Loki had put her under some sort of thrall? Of course they would assume the worst about him - not that she could blame them. Even she was hard pressed to explain the differences she'd seen between the devil that had fallen into her lap and the man she'd come to know. She couldn't trust her tongue anymore, and so she remained silent.

Fury seemed disappointed by her lack of response, and he cut a sharp glance down at her when he continued. "That leaves me in a bit of an awkward situation, Dr. Foster. You see, I can't keep supporting a project when I don't know for sure what your motivation is. But I'm not about to haul you up on charges if I can't say for certain that you were acting independently." He dragged a thoughtful hand across the trim goatee that graced his chin. "We're at a bit of an impasse here, it would seem."

It took Jane a few tries to find her voice, lost amidst the shoals of apprehension. "So what happens now?"

"Now, Dr. Foster?" Fury stepped closer to the bed, and his features grew sharp as knives as he pierced her with the intensity of his gaze. "You recover under the watchful eye of SHIELD. It's only fair, seeing as how you were wounded by an agent of ours. And after that? I send you home."

"Just like that?" She arched her brows. It seemed too easy.

Fury clasped his hands behind his back and bent at the waist, his attention suddenly menacing as his face filled her vision. "Just like that, Dr. Foster. Only...you're no longer on SHIELD payroll. I'm turning control of your research back over to Culver University, and washing my hands of you. You can keep the lab, and the equipment in it now, but that's the end of our connection." She did flinch then, at the thinly veiled threat in his tone. "And you can bet your ass that we _will_be watching you. You won't even so much as breathe without my people knowing."

He straightened abruptly, and all hint of malice fell from his posture as he did. "That's all the warning I'm going to give you, Dr. Foster. I hope, for your sake, that this is the last time we meet." Without waiting for a response he nodded a farewell at Tony Stark and stalked out of the room, leaving Jane gaping in his wake.

"That's Fury for you. Subtle as a ton of bricks," Tony piped up after a few moments, and Jane started. She'd nearly forgotten he was even there.

Her fingers worried at the pristine sheets, the cotton dry and cool beneath her damp palms. She'd been so foolish, to think that she could tweak the nose of SHIELD and never be caught. As if some scientist in the sticks could outsmart a vast government agency. Her eyes burned with frustration, but she pasted a brave smile on her face when she lifted her head. "I can't blame him for being cautious. He has a job to do, after all."

Tony scooted to the edge of the seat and draped his forearms over his knees, his dark eyes unreadable. "I'm not so sure he's doing it."

His doubt drew Jane from her musing. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that crap runs downhill. And we seem to be directly downhill of Asgard. Every time something's gone wrong there lately it we've had to deal with the fallout on Earth. Thor said he needed to take Loki back, and he made it seem very urgent, but he never said why." Tony rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, as if he could relieve the tension that wrinkled his brow. "I don't like it, not after what happened in New York. We need to be finding answers, not sticking our head in the sand."

Jane frowned. "It's not like we can just...call and ask."

"No. Someone's going to have to march in there and demand the truth." Tony pinned her with a considering look before standing, and in his hands was a thin glossy tablet she hadn't noticed before. "And I think I know who."

Her foggy brain sifted through his words, sure that there was something vital she was missing in his insinuations, but it didn't become clear until Tony offered the tablet to her. "Wait...me?" she asked incredulously. "You want _me_ to go to Asgard? But...how...why?"

"It's all here." He jiggled the device in his hand and a smirk tilted his mouth. "Your work. I copied everything, not just the stuff you were planning on sharing with me. I'm sure SHIELD's wiped all your files by now - your lab is probably crawling with agents. But with this, I don't think you're far from a breakthrough of your own even without Loki's help. And I'm still willing to build your prototype."

Her stomach fell at that. She hadn't even considered that SHIELD would pull a repeat of their last stunt, but she realized now that Fury had only said she could keep her equipment. He'd never said anything about her data. "I thought you were sure that I was crazy, or hypnotized."

He didn't respond, just drew the tablet back and ran his fingers over the surface in a complex dance, absorbed by whatever was displayed on its screen. "Jarvis - that's my computer - runs a constant video feed through my Iron Man suit. After what happened at your lab the other day, something kept bothering me about the whole situation...so I queued up the footage from that evening and watched it again."

He moved to her shoulder and held the screen at arm's length, in her field of view, so she could see the screen as easily as he. There was the familiar landscape of her laboratory, whitewashed by the floodlights of SHIELD's transport plane, all seen from the bird's-eye view of Iron Man. With queasy anticipation she saw herself twisting in the arms of the red-haired agent, amidst a cacophony of noise and lights she barely remembered. Silver flashing as Thor leapt across the fight, as easily as she might hop a curb. The low whine and white streaks of Iron Man's energy pulses, careening over the battle like meteors falling. Arrows buzzing through the air in an angry swarm. And throughout it all, the violent green of Loki's swirling cloak and crackling bolts as he wove himself and his magic nimbly about the fight. It was a beautiful, horrific dance - one that only ended when she saw herself crumpling to the desert floor, the black fletching that pierced her chest an exclamation point on her collapse. Pain flared in her ribs all over again just watching it.

Her heart lurched at the echoed sound of her name, rending from two throats in near symmetry. It stopped entirely at the sight of Loki blinking into existence at her side, clutching her limp form with white-knuckled desperation. Numbly she listened as the tinny recording of Tony's voice threatened Loki.

"Stop there." His finger tapped the screen as those ten seconds ticked by, freezing the tableau and shaking Jane free of the film's grip. She blinked eyes that had gone wide and dry as Tony zoomed in on the frame, dominated by Thor's features twisted with anguish, his shoulders drooping in defeat. But it was Loki's face in the foreground that hit her like a punch to the stomach - his broken, wild visage that crumpled her own brow in sympathy. Her hand reached toward the screen before she could check it, a motion that didn't pass unnoticed by Tony's sharp eyes.

He set the tablet, still paused, on the bed-sheets beside her and fixed her with a knowing look. "I don't know what's going on with you three. But I'm starting to think you're the _only_ person on Earth who might get a straight answer from them."

"But...Fury-" she began weakly.

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "Forget Fury. He doesn't pull my string. This is strictly between you and me, Jane." Tony turned from the bed and reached for the knob, rapping a couple times in the open doorway thoughtfully as he looked back at her. "Think about it. Let me know." And with the click of a latching door he was gone.

Her room had gone silent except for the soft whisper of fans as Jane turned Tony's offer over in her mind. Reason and rationale told her to forget all of this, to listen to Erik. Go back to Puente Antiguo or Culver University and forget that she'd ever brushed up against gods. She was no superhero or soldier. She was lucky to know which end of a knife was the pointy one in the kitchen. At the end of the day she was just a scientist - a brilliant one, but cannon fodder nonetheless. Jane was well aware that she'd never amount to anything on a battlefield.

But...answers?

Loki's shattered expression haunted her as her hand crept over the cool plastic of the tablet, almost against her will, fingers curling about its edges as she dragged it into her lap and began tapping the screen intently.

She'd always been good at finding those. And she was starting to think Tony wasn't the only person that needed some.

* * *

Loki had finally dragged himself from the cold embrace of the floor with a hand up from Thor, scraped too thin and hollow to even muster concern over the spectacle they'd just treated half of Odin's court to. The All-father's commanding voice barked orders that cleared everyone from the throne room in mere moments, scurrying over themselves towards the exits. Thor's arm twined beneath his and he was dragging the both of them through a curtained doorway in the back of the throne room that led to a small council chamber.

Loki fell heavily into a padded chair that sat amongst a handful of its fellows around a small table, all carved and upholstered with an understated elegance. Dimly he recognized this room, one where Odin often met with his advisors on breaks between sessions. Thor sat across from him, dirt and blood bedraggling his armor and face. Loki's own fingers were sticky with drying blood, a scarlet that screamed up at him as he aligned them carefully atop the table. Apathy had seized his limbs and clasped his mind in fetters - he shouldn't be here amongst these people again, he should be halfway across the universe by now - but he couldn't work up the energy to care.

Odin and Frigga filed somberly in behind them, and although his mother had choked back her sobs by the time she entered the room her eyes glistened anew as she gazed at Loki's hands. Her lips were white with worry and distress had pressed dark thumbprints beneath her brows. She looked so much older to him than she had before. Just how long had he been gone from Asgard? The past seemed a fluid thing to him now, filled with shoals and riptides, and as he tried to grip it memory dribbled through his fingers like water.

Or was it like blood? Hot and accusing, staining his skin with his sins. He blinked at the sound of his name, pulled his eyes from the lurid sight of his crimson palms to find them all staring. How many times had they called him?

"My sons," Odin rumbled from his seat at the head of the table. 'What has happened?"

The automatic denial of parentage parted his lips, but the words were hampered by his narrowed throat. He swallowed against the lump, and the scent of copper that hung in the air slid down with the motion to churn his belly. He was no stranger to battle, to the greasy cling of effluvia afterwards. So why did the sight of his gory hands turn his stomach so? When had red suddenly become anathema to him?

Words he'd spoken in what seemed like another lifetime echoed down the hallways of recollection to mock him. There was red in his ledger, so much red...and now Jane's was the brightest of all.

His eyes flickered up towards Thor, watched him drag a grimy hand over the drawn lines of his face. "I had to choose," Thor said at last, and the broken wreck of his voice fell like shards of glass on Loki's ears.

"Oh," came the queen's soft exclamation of sympathy, and her hand crept over Thor's forearm to squeeze it gently - but it was Loki's eyes she held.

"I am sorry," Odin said heavily. "They...can be so terribly fragile." In his eye was an ancient sadness that had Loki wondering just how many mortals Odin had watched pass him by in the river of time.

"She's not dead." He was startled when the words slipped from his mouth, but the very act of speaking them fanned the tiny spark of hope he hadn't realized he'd been cupping. The mortals were clever, a quality he was beginning to realize he'd underestimated. Perhaps there was some way they might have saved her.

Perhaps this stain wasn't permanent.

Resignation dulled Thor's bright eyes. "Loki, we both saw-"

The clatter of his chair tipping backwards as he shot up broke Thor's speech, a sudden blaze of fury turning his apathy to ash. "_She __is __not __dead__!_" Loki shouted, and crimson smudged the table when his hands slammed down atop it for emphasis, the crack of his strike echoing through a room gone silent. Thor blinked up at him, wary realization dawning on his face.

Odin and Frigga exchanged a weighted glance as Loki panted, scrambling for composure. He hated this uncontrollable beast he'd become, one that snarled and gnashed its teeth at the slightest provocation. Every day he seemed less and less the serpent he'd so long admired, and more the roaring lion he loathed. With stiff wooden motions he righted his chair and sat again.

"Why am I here?" he asked dully. "I want to hear it from you, All-father."

Odin drew a deep breath, then sighed. "The frost giants have a new queen, Skadi. She has sent us demands that we produce you, so that you may face punishment for the destruction of Jotunheim. Otherwise, she marches to battle."

The heart in his chest was surely dead and cold. He refused to believe it would shatter beneath this weight. "And so you wish to make an example of me. Slit my throat to save your own?"

"Oh, Loki." The sorrow in Odin's voice was a knife that slid gracefully beneath his armor. "You would believe this of me? Of us?"

He was lost amongst the whorls of the table's grain, unable to look up. "I know not what to believe anymore. Least of all from you."

"I will not stand for it." Thor's faded air had strengthened, determination squaring his jaw. "I have not chosen Loki just to lose him again. Let Skadi come, let her dash her army against the might of Asgard. You caution me against seeking war, Father, but this time it seeks us. We shall be his shield."

Odin only shook his head sadly. "I fear that Asgard will not be the first place she looks. All the realms know of what has happened on Midgard, that Loki was seen there last. Even if we let it be known he is here in Asgard, she will suspect deceit. I believe she is aware of your...fondness for Midgard, Thor. She means to hold it hostage." Odin's fingers curled into a fist atop the table, his knuckles turning white. "Laufey was wily, but this one...she is far cleverer than her predecessor."

The moments stretched out, thin as razor-wire.

"Surely, Odin, there must be some other way," Frigga said at last. "You would not have brought Loki here to face a choice as bleak as that."

The All-father shifted in his seat, and his white head bowed pensively. "There is one, an option that might appease Jotunheim." He lifted his eye to Loki, and the inevitability Loki saw in its blue depths set his heart hammering in his chest. "_Dreyri__._"

Terror cleaved Loki's tongue to the roof of his mouth. It was Thor that flew to his feet this time, his denial explosive. "No, Father! Torture?"

Odin heaved himself upright as well, bracing hands on the tabletop as he leaned into his son's ire. "What other choice does he have? Shall we have him lay his head on the executioner's block? Shall he run for all of eternity, dragging chaos and war in his wake? If his life is too high a price, then his blood will have to suffice. He is not guiltless, Thor."

"I am right here. Do not speak as if I am not," Loki interrupted, a dreadful calm pressing him down in his seat despite the part of him screaming for escape. The snare he'd stepped into on Earth had begun to tighten, the strands of his actions finally woven into the rope that would hang him. He couldn't escape the feeling of deja vu, the realization that he'd seen this all played out before - in black words printed on a page lit by firelight.

Abruptly he stood, choking on the sensation of blundering into fate's web. "I will decide at first light."

Thor's mouth fell open, but his protest was silenced by a sharp gesture from Odin. Frigga was the only one still seated, her anxious gaze bouncing between the three men as they squared off. Slowly she stood and approached Loki, taking his arm in her hands, and the tension drained from the air. He stifled the childish urge to cling to her familiar strength.

"I will take you to your chambers," she murmured, and pulled him unresisting from the room to stumble down hallways and paths his heart hadn't forgotten, even if his hope had.


	13. Chapter 13 - A Price Paid

_Author's Note: Thanks to everyone for their patience with this update. And thank you for all the reviews, follows, favorites, etc...you guys make it all worthwhile!_

_Fair warning, this chapter goes in a dark direction. Turn back now if you disapprove._

_Song of the Chapter - A Drowning, by How to Destroy Angels_

* * *

Nothing had changed, which was both a comfort and a distress to Loki. His rooms were in the exact state he'd left them - the only thing within that had been altered drastically was himself, it would seem. His mother lingered by the writing desk in one corner of his room, its polished surface tiled with stacks of neatly squared papers and books, inkwells and pens and scraps of notes lining the upper edge. Bookshelves nearby reached towards the ceiling far overhead, filled with volumes and scrolls in regimental order. On a small dais opposite the balcony was his great bed, carved from a wood as black as ebony and piled with emerald linens, many woven and embroidered by Frigga's own hand. She looked around the room, almost as if seeing it for the first time herself, and a rueful smile curved her lips.

"I had them leave everything just as it was," she explained. "I...had hoped you would return to us, someday."

His lips felt like stone, forever carved into an unforgiving line that scarcely allowed for words. "Do not fool yourself, Mother. This is no joyous reunion."

"No," she murmured, trailing one hand along the smooth grain of the desk, her face hidden from his by her orderly autumnal curls. "But it is still more than I had hoped for. To see you again, no matter the circumstances."

He brushed past her and made for the washroom adjacent to his bedchamber, its ivory splendor enhanced by mosaics of jade and onyx. Warm water spilled over his hands from the gilded tap, stripping the bloodied gloves from his fingers. Cuts from the broken arrow and Thor's armor stung and bled anew until his bright blood mingled with Jane's duller red in the basin, the pink water taking on a brown hue against the green tile-work. He watched until the last swirl of it drained away before turning back to his mother.

A brief tug on his magic sealed the wounds on his palms and fingers seamlessly and he pondered the smooth unbroken flesh as remorse perched heavily on his shoulders. If only he hadn't frozen, if he hadn't been suffocating on the irrational panic that had clawed his throat, it would have been as trivial a matter to heal Jane's wound.

Small comfort being the greatest sorcerer in the Nine was at this moment. All the magic in the universe couldn't conjure peace of mind or absolution, or lessen the amorphous weight that bowed his back. It felt as if cracks were slowly spiderwebbing across his skin, as if Jane's injury had been a blow that had struck some grave flaw, and he was perilously close to shattering into a thousand incongruent pieces that would never be made whole again.

It took him a moment to find his voice, hiding as it was behind the regret and shame that clogged his throat. "How can you say that? How can you welcome me so blithely? Do you know what these hands of mine have done, Mother? They look clean now, but they're not. They're squalid. Filthy with stains I cannot scrub off." His petrified features finally shifted, rearranged into a bitter grimace. "You cannot know what taint you would embrace."

She pushed away from the desk at that, took a few steps in his direction with eyes that shone brightly in the steady golden glow of lamps far overhead. "Oh, Loki." Her head shook sadly as she approached, tilting her head up to meet her son's gaze despite her own impressive stature. "If you have to ask me that, you do not understand love at all." She reached for his trembling hand, twined her fingers through his own as she clasped it between her palms. "Nothing you do can ever change the fact that you are our son. _Nothing__._ It is not some mark that can simply be erased, no matter how you might try. It is carved, indelibly, on all our hearts. Mine...your brother's...and most certainly your father's."

Loki choked back the bubble of a sob as it rose in his chest. How pitiful it was, that all he wanted at that moment was to fall into her arms and cry, as if he were some little boy with a skinned knee. He schooled his face into practiced neutrality as he drew his hand from her grasp and squared his shoulders. "You presume much, to speak for them."

"Do I?" she asked softly, and Loki shied away from the memory of Thor's stricken face as he made his choice on Midgard. Steeled himself against the sadness that seemed to have stamped itself permanently on Odin's aging features.

As his silence drew out, Frigga sighed and changed the subject. "What will you do, Loki?"

He shrugged wordlessly, reaching restlessly to line up the corners of an already neat stack atop his desk. "What would you do, Mother?" he asked, his idle appearance belying his sharp curiosity.

Frigga shook her head resolutely. "I dare not answer that. I advised you once, pushed you into a decision hastily, and I have regretted it every day since. This is something you must choose for yourself."

The very walls seemed to lean closer, forcing the air from the room. Frigga must have seen the tension on his face, for her grim resolve softened. "Maybe...I should show you something that didn't seem to make a great deal of sense until today. Before you make any decisions," she said.

Curiosity cut through his burgeoning fear and pulled her along behind him as she beckoned, trailing down arched corridors and curving staircases until they had reached a different set of rooms in the same wing. Tall doors swung open at Frigga's touch onto a chamber that Loki hadn't been to since he was a child.

"Why are we here?" he frowned, looking about the weaving room in confusion. Baskets stuffed with skeins of yarn and silk in every color of the rainbow were stacked about, vying for space with looms and embroidery frames of countless shape and size. A few women were chattering while they carded wool and plied spindles, their cheerful faces fading in surprise as they glanced up at the visitors. A single gesture from the queen had them scattering like sparrows before the hawk, leaving the room empty in mere moments.

"I have little _seidr_, when compared to you or Odin. No flashy magic or spells outside of an unusual affinity for the thread," his mother said quietly, her hands clasped before her as she walked slowly towards the back wall. Her drooping posture and wilted voice grew stronger here, as if this sanctuary held reserves of strength she could tap. "Often what I weave is simply what pleases my eye, or whatever pattern comes to my hands when I reach for thread. But sometimes a design falls upon my mind like lightning, brands itself behind my eyes and demands creation."

He'd heard whispers over the years, unconfirmed rumors that murmured Frigga's name with awe - that Odin was not the only royal with the gift of foresight, that at times her tapestries were eerily prescient. His mother had always stayed infuriatingly mute on the subject, but there had been times he'd seen the gleam of triumph in her eyes after Odin had navigated some particularly thorny issue with success. He wondered now if there really was more than just pride in her husband behind that.

They came to a large loom leaning against a far wall, opposite a bank of glittering windows that bathed the fabric taking shape on it in the fiery glow of the setting sun. An emerald backdrop was set with an elaborate repeating pattern that curled about the edges of the cloth, picked out in strands that shone black and pearly white in the dying daylight. He crept closer and ran disbelieving fingertips over the delicate design, the woolen threads as thin and smooth as silk beneath his touch. She'd woven an expanse of green in the very same shade as his personal livery - and dancing about the border were riotous sprays of ebon _minna_ blossoms, so lifelike he could almost see them still clutched in Jane's fist.

Of all the flowers in all of Midgard, how had she chosen those?

"Why...how is this..." he faltered, and turned desperate eyes on Frigga. "What does this mean?"

Frigga tilted her head and arched a brow at Loki. "I was hoping you could tell me."

He pulled his hand back from the cloth and the fingers wrapped about themselves at his side, as if he could trap within his fist the strange feeling that stirred beneath his breastbone. His eyes searched the fabric for some meaning, some clue traced in the haunting pattern, but it remained simply cloth to him.

"How could I?" he growled at last, frustration tangling his brows together. "It's not even finished." With an impatient gesture he motioned towards the abrupt edge of the weaving, where the shuttle waited patiently to be taken up again. Then slow realization dawned, and he turned to look wide-eyed at Frigga.

"It's not finished," he repeated, but this time it was amazement that colored his voice rather than anger.

A small, secretive smile hovered about her lips as his mother idly stroked the raised flowers. "No, it's not." She spared a glance up at her stunned son, and patted his shoulder gently. "Take heart, Loki."

Her words were like tinder to the small spark of hope he'd so desperately guarded, and the resulting flame began to eat away at the trepidation that had been squeezing his midsection. Could Jane really have lived? Was that the symbol he was to read here? He couldn't even bring himself to voice the idea, as if just shaping the words would somehow splinter the spun-glass strength of possibility.

That fragile support bolstered the sprout of a conclusion he didn't even remember planting.

"I can't keep running," he admitted softly. Jane had called him selfish once, and she'd been painfully right. He _was_ selfish. But could he buy his own safety with the lives of others so casually? There was a line drawn there, that separated gods from monsters - one that he might have cheerfully stepped over not so long ago.

He found it harder and harder to contemplate doing so now.

Terror turned his bowels and joints to water, but he forced his limbs to stiffen. And if the small brave smile he pasted onto his face for his mother's benefit wavered about the edges, she had the good grace to let it slide unacknowledged. "Tell...tell the All-father that I accept his alternative."

* * *

The jotun came for him the very next morning.

He'd spent a restless night tangled in his sheets, his familiar bed all wrong - too wide, too soft, too silent. There was no clacking of keys at odd hours, no muffled exclamations or curses from the adjacent room. No bracing scent of coffee lingering in the air as the sun rose.

It was just he, Odin, and Thor that marched wordlessly down the shimmering remnants of the Bifrost, where the tattered end of it drifted aimlessly still at the fringes of the void and the veil between realms was thinnest. He'd heard Thor and Odin arguing half the night, the very walls and windows of the palace shaking at times beneath the force of their vigor until Thor had unhappily subsided. Even now Thor's eyes were reddened and grim, and he kept one hand wrapped about the handle of Mjolnir as if he expected frost giants to leap from the shadows at any moment.

Heimdall's copper eyes slid over the gathering curiously from where he towered at the lonely edge of the realm, always at his appointed post, but if he found any irony in the similarities to Loki's last visit he held his tongue. As the minutes dragged out Thor fidgeted ever more anxiously, until his simmering mood finally boiled over.

"It cannot be borne!" he burst out, his knuckles going white as he fisted a hand at his side. "Father, this is madness. To trust the jotun like this? It is not too late...we can still go back and hide Loki away until this storm blows over."

Whatever answer either Loki or Odin might have given him was swept away as the air before them took on a strange sheen, rippling in ever-widening rings like the broken surface of a lake. From the center of the circles appeared first a great hand, large enough to hold any of their heads within its grasp, and then the rest of the figure followed. A half-dozen jotun had shuffled into order when the wavering air parted one last time and out stepped a frost giant that could only be the new queen.

Skadi was nearly as tall as any of her guard although her limbs lacked the bulk of theirs, leaning towards a willowy sort of grace that still conveyed a lean strength. Her heavy features were chiseled into a more alien elegance than those of her companions, imbued with the eerie craggy beauty of a snow cornice. Scarlet eyes roved over their assembled group appraisingly in the silence that had fallen, lingering on Loki the longest. The wind at the edge of the world stirred the white strands of her hair, set them glittering in the morning sun against the riotous colors of Asgard like the first frost of autumn.

"King Odin Borson of Asgard." Skadi's voice was clear and musical, as if shards of ice were tumbling together. Her great head inclined gravely in greeting, and the motion rattled the claws and teeth that adorned her fur-trimmed armor. "We were most pleased to receive your message."

"Queen Skadi the Huntress, of Jotunheim. It is unfortunate that our first meeting is not under better circumstances," Odin replied mildly, his blank face giving nothing away.

She studied Odin for a moment as if searching his statement for hidden insult, before a cold smile slashed across her face. "The circumstances may be unfortunate for you and yours, but they have been long awaited by my people." Her attention swung back to Loki and fear was a trickle of frigid seawater down his spine as her smile widened, glittering harshly like the frozen edge of the North wind. His nerve nearly broke at the sight, and he was halfway towards gathering his magic to tear a passage into being when his courage finally recovered.

Her glee was not lost on Odin, whose face furrowed in a frown. "Prince Loki has agreed to the rite of _dreyri _as recompense for his crimes against Jotunheim - the unprovoked deaths of 1,065 men, women, and children of the Jotun race. He will serve one hour of _dreyri_ for each death, and thus will be released six weeks from this day. There will be no maiming or disfigurement, and he will be given safe passage in your lands once his sentence is complete. Does Jotunheim agree to these terms?"

It was one thing to have realized, cerebrally, what his decision entailed. It was another to have the details of it laid out so baldly, and Loki could feel the blood draining from his face. With an effort of will he forced steel into his spine and strong-armed his lungs back into motion. He would not wilt at the feet of his captors, would not give their mocking eyes the satisfaction of the sight - Frigga's and Odin's words commingling strangely to give him strength. Whatever happened, he was a prince, and he would do the title honor.

Hunger stretched Skadi's features thin as she nodded her agreement, leaning almost imperceptibly in Loki's direction. "Six weeks, and he shall be given over to his own devices once more. You have my word, on my honor as a shieldmaiden and a _seidrkona_."

Odin's own snowy hair was a mirror of her own as he tilted his head up to meet her eye. "You will forgive me if I require more assurance." A golden sphere coalesced in his cupped palm, and he offered the glowing ball to the giantess. "An oath spell, Queen Skadi. If these vows are broken, I will know immediately." His friendly mein fell away like a discarded mask, leaving the hard glare and steely resolve of the most powerful being in all the realms when he continued. "And there will be no place in the Nine realms that the Huntress will not be hunted."

The creak of leather as Thor tightened his grip on Mjolnir was all the punctuation that statement needed.

Unhappiness twisted her lips and insult flared in her eyes, but after studying the spell a moment Skadi plucked it from Odin's hand and the warm light of it melded into the blue of her skin, highlighting bone and vessels within as it flared brightly before fading away. "It is done," she spat, and at a flick of her fingers one of her party came forward with a set of shackles in hand.

Loki watched with idle curiosity as the engraved bands were clasped about his unresistant wrists, everything suddenly surreal and dreamlike as if he were watching from outside himself. He felt as the cool metal sucked greedily at his magic, drained his _seidr _until there was scarcely trickle enough to keep his knees from buckling.

How ironic, that he'd been led to Asgard in shackles only to leave it chained once again.

Skadi's tug on the chain that strung his arms together had him stumbling for balance, and from behind him he heard a muffled sound of dismay as Thor bit back his outrage. With a wave of her hand the air rippled once more, and one by one her guard filed through the portal she'd opened. She angled one last nod at Odin, her sharp chin jerking downwards before she stepped into the passage between realms dragging Loki behind her like an unruly pup.

He felt the stirrings of magic behind his navel, that tug that signaled a leap through space as the toes of his boots breached the opening before he was pulled to an abrupt stop by the steel band of fingers wrapping about his arm. Thor's face filled his vision and the emotion that twisted his features broke through the fog of detachment that had cushioned Loki so far.

"I will be here in six weeks. And if you do not return to me, brother..." Loki could have sworn that the low rumble of thunder danced along the edge of Thor's voice, and the ghost of lightning flashed in the depths of his blue eyes. "Jotunheim will have brought down a storm upon themselves, the likes of which will tear their realm stone from stone. I _will_ come for you."

He held Thor's desperate gaze as long as he could before the insatiable magic tore him from Thor's grasp and hurled him into the dizzying spaces between stars. Folding up the promise that had been written on his brother's face Loki clutched it tightly to himself, as if it was a talisman that could ward off the horrors that awaited.

* * *

Loki tumbled numbly from the passageway between worlds into the harsh landscape of Jotunheim, held upright only by Skadi's iron grip on his manacles. They stood at the foot of her great icy throne where it towered over an assembly of giants, their ululating cries and jeers crashing like an avalanche against his eardrums. Ice and snow blew in the cutting wind, stinging his eyes and slipping frigid fingers beneath the collar of his tunic, setting him to shivering despite his natural resistance to freezing. The cold was a tangible thing on Jotunheim, a presence that pressed down on you like a great icy palm and punished you for each breath drawn. Overhead the sky was purple and swollen, like a permanent bruise that blighted the jagged beauty of the ice. No sun ever rose here to gild the glacial structures, or to melt the razor edges that glittered all around. It was a fierce, unforgiving place.

Much like its people.

A gesture from Skadi silenced the cheering crowd, and she ascended the steps that had been chiseled into the dais, dragging Loki up the slick surface behind her.

"My people," she began once she had ascended, and her dulcet voice carried clearly across the eager, silent masses. "Today justice has smiled upon us all, and delivered unto us the agent of our misery. Behold the coward of Asgard, who hides behind distant weapons and slaughters innocents!"

She yanked his chains upwards, straining his arms in their sockets and bringing him to tiptoe, his eyes watering with the pain. A wall of sound rose from the people below as they roared their approval, slamming into him like a fist. Everywhere his desperate eyes searched he saw nothing but rage and bloodlust, hatred knotting the faces of jotun until they were scarcely recognizable as sentient. A fierce grin broke onto Skadi's face as she bathed in the chaos, letting her subjects whip themselves into a frenzy before motioning for silence once more.

"I am disappointed to tell you that we are forbidden from ending his pitiful life, lest we bring full war down upon our realm once more. But I can assure you all of one thing." Her grin grew even wider, flashing white and blue and dangerous like the half-seen glimpse of shark's teeth below the ocean's surface. "Before his time with us is finished, he will have begged for the mercy of death a thousand times over."

Howls and stamping erupted again at that, and if Skadi hadn't held his fetters Loki would have truly crumpled this time, quailing beneath the weight of their animosity. Fear was a metallic taint on his tongue that roiled his stomach, and he closed his eyes against the sting of tears, gulping great lungfuls of frigid air. He would suffer a thousand years of torture rather than weep openly before these beasts.

Skadi rattled the metal links in her hands to draw his attention. "Have you nothing to say, little one? Any words you would have us hear before your sentence begins?"

He gathered the tattered remnants of his dignity and raked her with a hot glare, taking a page from Jane's book of tragic pride, the sort that never had seemed to crumble no matter how the balance of power had been skewed. He refused to kowtow to Skadi or gratify her grandstanding.

She hissed with displeasure at his silence before storming down the steps once more, trailing Loki behind her as she pulled him through the gauntlet of assembled jotun towards the gaping maw of a cave set into a cliffside adjacent to the throne, icicles hanging like fangs from its entrance. Heatless blue flames flickered within orbs of clear ice set along the narrow passage as she led him deeper into the crevice that gouged the glacier, the lights pulling facets of green and azure from the smooth frozen walls.

The tunnel ended in a wide circular room with a ceiling that arched overhead in a perfect dome. Curving walls were unbroken by ornament save the ball of witchlight that hovered high in the apex of the cupola, casting watery light down onto the only feature of the room - an inverted U that stood in the very center of the floor, manacles arranged in four points about its circumference. Loki needed no explanation as to what purpose the structure served.

"Welcome to your guest quarters," Skadi said, with a ghastly leer. "I hope you find them to your liking, I've worked so very hard on the spells here."

He cast a derisive eye about the room, a reckless sort of courage bolstering his nerve. It wasn't as if he could somehow make his situation any worse than it was now. "Very subtle," he drawled, arching raven brows.

Irritation flattened Skadi's features, and she snatched at his forearm. He read the intention in her eyes and hysteria began to bubble in his chest as her fingers gripped him tightly, leather stiffening and shattering beneath her freezing grasp. The crumbling pieces of his clothing fell away to reveal not the blackened frostbite he saw she expected, but the slow creep of blue spreading over his skin, ridges raising in its wake.

"W-what?" she stammered in confusion, and Loki found he could only howl with half-mad laughter at the stunned expression on her face.

"Surprised, cousin?" he managed at last, between wheezing breaths, and Skadi's scarlet gaze darted between his face and the relentless march of azure across his skin.

"So the rumors were true," she breathed. "Laufey's whelp was not lost after all." Her eyes narrowed, and disgust curled her lip. "Bad enough to be a coward, but a traitor as well?"

Anger sparked in his chest at that, a familiar burn that he welcomed. It wove strength through the failing fibers of his muscles and bolstered his faltering joints. "I am no traitor. Your people will never be mine," he spat. "Savages and beasts, all of you."

She shook the arm she still gripped for emphasis, the spread of cyan and crumbling clothing past his shoulder now. "This would say otherwise, _cousin_. Perhaps we should strip away that pretty Aesir facade of yours, and you can try to say the same thing once more." Before he could scarcely draw breath her magic flared about him like a corona before condensing into the glittering shards of an icestorm. Power scoured at his skin, tried to flay all traces of Odin's spell from his flesh, and his throat strained around a soundless scream as his spine bowed beneath the agony.

After endless moments Skadi reined in her magic, the both of them pale and panting with exhaustion. "It cannot be undone," she snarled with disappointment, and hauled his limp form to the waiting manacles. He was too weak to resist as she fastened the fetters about his wrists and ankles. Pain was still singing along his nerves and weighing down his eyelids when she fisted her great hand in his hair, forcing his head backwards so sharply that his vision blurred with tears.

"I'd thought at first that simple tortures would suffice for you. Flaying or beating perhaps - there are plenty of widows and orphans that would volunteer to raise the whip. But I think now that you require something even crueller than that, Betrayer." A sneer exposed the startling white of her teeth, vivid against her dark blue lips. Her crimson eyes blazed as incongruent as coals in a snowdrift, the red of them filling his vision as she brought her face within a breadth of his own. "Tell me what you fear, runt."

The bindings had drained his magic and left him naked to her assault as what felt like greasy fingers rifled through his thoughts and memories, leaving smears of filth behind to dirty the inside of his skull. Bile rose in his throat at the horrid sensation, and he tried in vain to wrench his eyes from hers. Was this what it had felt like for Erik Selvig, for Clint Barton? This awful feeling of violation? Shame churned with the nausea in his belly until he thought he would be sick.

The slow spread of a smile across Skadi's face brought an end to the onslaught of his mind, and she released her grip on his hair with a small shove. For some moments he could only concentrate on the rhythm of his breath, lungs filling and emptying as he willed himself not to vomit.

"A strange thing for one such as yourself to dread," Skadi mused. "But how convenient for me."

Her signal brought one of the guards that stood at the door running over to kneel before his queen. "Your Highness?" the giant rumbled.

She never took her gaze off Loki as she gave the guard orders, glee crinkling the corners of her eyes. "Bring me Gargan."

The guard flinched, but stood and saluted before running out the door, heading towards a different wing of the icy palace. In no time at all he returned, struggling beneath the weight of an enormous crate. Whatever was within thrashed restlessly, nearly upsetting the jotun's balance on more than one occasion. The guard set his burden down at Skadi's feet with relief and hastened back to his post.

She lifted the dull metal of the lid and plunged fearless hands into its darkened depths. Triumph was a cold hard gleam in her eyes as she lifted them again, straining beneath the weight of a creature that set Loki moaning.

Great scaled coils colored the pale greens of frozen seawater looped endlessly about her forearms, writhing about themselves in a hypnotic weave. Above them all the heavy wedge of a serpent's head nosed through the strands of her hair, tongue dancing like a flicker of blue flame. Jet bead eyes glittered at him with uncanny intelligence.

"Do you like her?" Skadi asked, stroking an idle finger along the snake's patterned skin. "I spent two weeks tracking the ice serpent before I cornered her in a crevasse. She bit me before my spell took hold, so I understand completely the agony you are about to experience."

"No, no, no..." Loki's broken denials fell from his lips in pace with the racing of his pulse.

Skadi only smirked and raised her hands to the upper support of his fetters, the snake sliding from her arms to twine about the bar. Scales whispered along the back of his neck as Gargan settled herself against his skin, cold and unyielding like the hand of death. Terror raked claws down his gullet as Gargan's head swayed before his face, the tip of her tongue just brushing his nose as she tasted the salt of his fear.

"Fate is a lot like the venom of a serpent, Loki. The more we struggle against it, the faster it destroys us." Skadi tilted her head and a merciless smile knifed across her face. "Gargan...strike."

Fangs were hot daggers that seared the flesh of his neck, but it was the blaze of venom following the bite that tore screams from his throat as it flamed through his veins. Misery frayed the fibers of his muscles and ground his bones to powder until he sagged within his constraints. The frantic beat of his heart raced ever faster, flogged by pain and poison to dizzying speeds until there was no rest between one beat and the next, until the organ seized up entirely and Loki felt the illusion of mortality slowly becoming reality.

Just as blessed darkness fell for him the spell woven into his bindings flared, dragging him sobbing and mewling from the brink of death. Agony still shattered along his being, but he understood at last extent of his punishment - finality was a mercy he would never be granted.

"One thousand and sixty-five lives lost. One thousand and sixty-five hours you are here," intoned Skadi solemnly, and the look she fixed Loki with had almost a cast of pity to it. "And thus, one thousand and sixty-five deaths you will die, Loki of Asgard." She turned on a heel and marched from the room, ambivalent to his tortured cries echoing endlessly about the domed chamber, and Loki knew despair.


	14. Chapter 14 - A Brave First Step

_As always, thank you all. For everything._

_Song of the chapter: Transatlantisicm, by Death Cab for Cutie_

* * *

_The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row_

_It seems farther than ever before_

_Oh no._

_I need you so much closer._

* * *

"Foster Theory Quantitative Testing, trial number 43."

JARVIS' placid tones echoed slightly in the near-empty workroom over the barely perceptible whir of cameras placed about the ceiling as they swiveled towards the center of the room. Atop a low pedestal was an innocuous looking device - a small square base hardly larger than the palm of a hand, lit by the hot blue glow of an arc reactor embedded within. A square frame sat on end atop the base, a circular hole cut into it, and within that circle stretched a perfect triangle, another circle set within that. Jane eyed the set-up critically as Tony tapped at softly glowing screens beside her, the ragged edge of one nail caught between her teeth.

"I think this model has promise," Tony said, eyes never leaving the dizzying flow of information that streamed before him as he made last-minute adjustments. "Large enough to create the resonant frequencies we need, but small enough to be portable."

"If you think so." Jane's reply was dubious at best. She was trying to keep her spirits up, after so many failures...but JARVIS' pronouncement seemed so disheartening. Forty-two attempts they'd made so far, and all of them had failed spectacularly. She had complete confidence that her theories were sound, that they would work in time...but she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that time was something they didn't have.

She'd been released from SHIELD custody almost week after Tony's visit, and then had come to stay here at Stark Tower in the five weeks since. Everyone had been incredibly kind, and the tower itself was an amazing testament to science. Jane wondered at times if perhaps she'd really died back in New Mexico, and gone to heaven.

Even Clint Barton had shuffled into the lab one day, dragged along by Natasha, and had mumbled an apology that Jane had immediately waved away. She couldn't hold anyone responsible for what had happened to her - that was just the consequences of an ordinary woman being surrounded by extraordinary events, she figured. She was lucky to have lived at all.

Tony must have heard the trepidation in her voice, because he broke off from his efforts to spare a glance up at her. "Hey! You are not allowed to doubt me when we're in my own lab, understood? Go mope at your own place if you're going to be a Debbie Downer."

She smiled at that, his affront reassuring her the tiniest of bits, and turned back to the setup. On the pedestal before the bridge generator Tony had set a Captain America action figure in place as their test object. Lord only knew where he'd gotten it from - or the 42 that had preceded it. With a last few touches of the screen before him Tony sat back and folded his arms across his chest as a smug grin curled over his face.

Humming filled the room, hovering barely on the edge of perceptible sound as the arc reactor set in the device powered up. Sparks began to dance along the edges of the geometric shapes of the upper portion, crackling faster and faster until the edges seemed furred with blue. As the thrum reached a crescendo it beat at their eardrums until it culminated with a loud _crack_that bounced about the room like gunfire.

Jane yelped and dove beneath the desk, Tony huddled beside her as blobs of flaming plastic spattered about the lab - some sliding sadly down the walls, still burning like the charred marshmallow remnants of some campfire accident. Jane choked on the acrid stench that permeated the room, the coughing drawing small twinges of pain from her mostly-healed sternum.

"Damn," Tony swore softly, both of them staring at each other for a moment before breaking into laughter. It was too ridiculous not to, and it was better than crying, which Jane also considered doing. "Don't tell Steve what happened to him," Tony warned, and she only laughed louder.

Just then the lock on the door disengaged, and they both poked their heads above the surface of the desk to see a dark-haired vaguely disheveled man enter, his face rounded in a look of confusion as he took in the charred chaos that streaked the lab, Tony's robots wheeling about and patiently extinguishing stray flames.

"Who says physics is boring?" he asked, shaking his head as he closed the door behind him. Jane and Tony clambered to their feet, a genuine smile crinkling Tony's eyes as he headed towards the newcomer.

"You made it," Tony said and took the man's hand in his own, shaking it vigorously a few times. "Jane Foster, this is Dr. Bruce Banner. Bruce, Dr. Foster."

Jane shook Bruce's proffered hand shyly, pushing an unruly wave of hair back behind her ear with the other hand. "It's nice to meet you in person, finally," she gushed. "When I was studying in the physics department at Culver the staff spoke of you often, but obviously research faculty doesn't mingle with the student body much."

His dark eyes were warm as he returned her smile. "No, but I did hear your name make the rounds more than a few times, Dr. Foster. The physics department was always very impressed by you, even as an undergrad - I'm glad to see they didn't let you slip away to some other university."

"Thank you," she grinned, flattered by the compliment and surprised at how...normal Dr. Banner seemed. It was impossible to live here in Stark Tower and be involved with SHIELD and not know of Dr. Banner's affliction, but she never would have believed it if she hadn't been told from looking at the man. He appeared just like nearly every other dedicated academic she'd met in her life - rumpled, distracted, but genial. Lines about his eyes showed he wasn't a stranger to smiling, although there did seem to be a hint of sadness that lingered about his gaze. Not surprising, she figured, when you had to deal with the sorts of complications that came from having the mother of all split-personalities.

"Yes, yes, we're all brilliant people here." Tony broke in, eager to get back to the puzzle at hand, as always. "Did you have a chance to look over the notes I sent you, Bruce?"

"I did, but you know that particle physics isn't quite my area of expertise," Bruce hedged as he followed Tony and Jane into the room, pausing to inspect the apparatus that sat innocent and inert atop the pedestal, as if it hadn't just incinerated a harmless toy. "This is a different model than the one you sent me schematics for?"

"Yeah, I just came up with this smaller design today. It's got the juice to get things done, but as you can see..." Tony gestured wryly to the charred bits of plastic that still clung about the room. "It's packing too big of a punch."

Bruce made a thoughtful sound as he circled the contraption, and then trailed over to the console. "This is really ingenious, Dr. Foster. Using a magnetic vortex to generate negative mass? Very clever."

Jane faltered at that, her eyes sliding to Tony in a silent shrug. It was true that ninety percent of what they were dealing with here was her theories...but it probably didn't bear saying that the other ten was Loki's. Bruce didn't seem to mind her silence though, just slid into the seat Tony had vacated and began perusing the results of their tests.

After only a few minutes, he began to chuckle. "Well, that was quick. I should have charged you a consulting fee, Tony."

"What?" Tony scoffed and craned his head to peer suspiciously over Bruce's shoulder. "There's no way you've figured it out that fast."

Bruce just shook his head, and his eyes danced with a suppressed grin as he pointed a finger at the figures that hovered in the air. "Right here. The frequency of oscillation is going too high, and you're tapping into a region of hyperspace with way too much pressure. That's why your toy went boom."

Jane groaned and put a hand to her forehead as Tony stared slack-jawed at Bruce. "Of course," she exclaimed, feeling incredibly stupid. "I can't believe we didn't think of something as simple as that. The toy was being compressed so quickly and so fast it literally imploded." Jane did some rapid mental calculations. "We need to keep it closer to 20 megahertz."

Bruce smiled at her, and swiveled in his chair. "Leave it to Tony to assume that more power equals better," he quipped, earning a glare from Tony.

"It can't be that simple," he muttered, shouldering Bruce out of the way as his hands flew over the console controls. After a few moments of running equations, he pushed away from the screen and shook his head in disbelief. "I'll be damned. I think it really might be that simple. Quick, Banner...gimme your watch."

Bruce unbuckled the timepiece and set it into Tony's impatient palm, only becoming suspicious when Tony placed it before the bridge generator. "Wait, that's practically brand new! Tony, what are you doing?"

"Relax." Tony waved a hand at Bruce's protests. "If you're so sure that's the solution, then you have nothing to worry about, right? Let me just tweak the capacitor here..."

Bruce looked as if there were a million more complaints on the tip of his tongue but he subsided, shooting a dark glare in Tony's direction as he came to stand beside Jane, the both of them watching as Tony tinkered with the device.

"JARVIS," Tony addressed his AI. "Govern power to the device, setting an emergency shut-down if the frequency of oscillation exceeds a limit of 20 MHz, and then repeat test."

"Understood, sir." There was a moment of silence as cameras refocused, and then JARVIS spoke again. "Foster Theory Quantitative Test, trial number 44 - Wednesday, July 13th 2011. 4:27 p.m."

JARVIS' calm words were a stark foil to the hope that stretched tentative wings in Jane's chest.

All three scientists stood behind the relative safety of the desk as the arc reactor powered up once more, washing all their faces in a light harsher even than the fluorescent overhead. Again the whine of it built to a fever-pitch, a thrumming that shivered in the bones of Jane's skull and set her teeth clenching. She was poised to drop at any moment below the safety of the desk again when a flare of light seared through her tightly-shut eyes, flashing red and green in the darkness behind her lids. The sound died abruptly away with the light, leaving her ears still ringing with the loss. They all blinked around the silent lab, unclenching eyes and unstoppering ears hesitantly.

To see the generator inert once more, and Bruce's watch resting unharmed atop the second pedestal some feet away.

Jane whooped and threw excited arms around both of the men before gamboling about, too elated to care about propriety or shyness at that moment. "Do you see that?" she cried over and over, gesticulating wildly as Bruce and Tony chuckled. "JARVIS please tell me we got good footage of that!"

Even the AI's unflappable voice held what almost seemed to be a hint of amusement. "Documentation confirmed, Dr. Foster."

"Congratulations, Jane," Tony grinned down at her, his dark eyes sparkling with humor and a hint of pride. "I think we can safely say we've just proven Foster's Theory."

She hadn't even thought it possible for her grin to get any wider.

* * *

"Loki."

The sound of his name drew him from the hazy sanctuary he'd retreated to deep inside his own mind, where he could pretend that the pain that chewed relentlessly on the marrow of his bones belonged to someone else. Was happening to someone else. For one breathless moment his addled brain tried to tell him the voice belonged to Jane, but as lucidity slowly returned he knew that was impossible. He'd left Jane to bleed out under the pitiless stars of Midgard. There was no way she had, or would, come for him - even if she had survived. There was only so much he could be forgiven for.

He was alone save for the tattered spectre of misery that haunted him.

"Loki," came his name again, more insistently, and this time the call was accompanied by fingers that wrapped around his chin and lifted his face. For the briefest of moments he leaned into that touch like a starving man - for the proof it gave him that he was still alive, perhaps. Until the chill that soaked into his skin from the flesh lain against his own startled him into full awareness and his eyes dragged themselves open, to find Skadi's unwelcome face hovering before his own.

"Cousin," she chided, and there was an air of sympathy to her that set Loki's teeth on edge and shook his mind awake. He trusted nothing about this woman, least of all her mercurial moods. "I fear you look rather ill."

He summoned the energy for a narrow glare, one that drew a laugh from Skadi's lips. "Not so ill as to be docile though, I see."

She released her hold on his chin and straightened, standing half again as tall as he at her full height. It was all he could do to force his ragged muscles into obedience and crane his neck upwards to keep her in sight.

"I thought at first this was what I wanted, to see you suffer. But with my uncle dead, I realize now that you are nearly all the family I have left. I worry for you, Loki." A mournful frown pursed her features, and to the casual observer her statement might have even seemed genuine - but Loki could see the bright light of calculation deep within her eyes, could taste a lie on the air better than any hound. It was nigh on impossible to deceive the deceiver. "My people demand a heavy price of you, and I comply to win their hearts, but it pains mine to see kin treated so. Seeing you in agony brings me no joy."

He dragged a sandpaper tongue over dry lips, and tried to remember how to form sounds that were something more than screams. "Then release me," he finally managed. "_Cousin_." His voice was a hoarse shadow of its cultured self but it still managed to make a mockery of the familial term.

Skadi only shook her head. "You know that I dare not. There would be riots at the news, and my subjects would cry for my head. Unless..." She trailed off to tap a thoughtful finger against her lips, sliding a considering look at Loki from the corner of her ruby eyes. "I could offer them some greater alternative. A new prize, to divert them."

He only stared sullenly up at her, unwilling to gratify her fumbling calculation with a response. She was as subtle as a bilgesnipe if she thought to convince him that she hadn't come here with the express intent of offering him some carrot as opposed to the stick she used on him now. The only motion to their standoff was the slow slide of Gargan's coils as she undulated around Loki's neck, their hateful cool glide the sole thing that grounded him at times.

"Not curious in the slightest?" Skadi raised one crystalline brow, and her mouth twisted sardonically. "I can offer you freedom..._and_ acceptance Loki. People will remember your name for eons, they will craft songs and poems that praise your birth as a blessing rather than the shame it is now." She paced a tight figure before him, her voice rising with excitement as she gestured. "Take your place here, in the royal family with me. Be my right hand, retrieve the Casket of Ancient Winters for us, and then with our _seidr_ combined there will be none in the Nine Realms that could withstand our might."

Horror swept the last of the cobwebs from his mind as he stared at Skadi in disbelief. "Ragnarök," he choked, the word slipping its leash before he could rein it in, and Skadi wheeled about to fix him with a frown.

"That word means nothing to me," she said.

Loki couldn't contain the panic that raked at his belly, set him thrashing within his bonds until blood ran hot down his fingers and ankles. "Never!" he cried, and he could feel his tenuous grip on sanity slip a few precious inches more as some dark part of himself whispered how much easier it would all be if he acquiesced. It would be freedom in so many different ways, really...freedom from these bonds, from this misery, but also freedom from the fear. To give in, to give up, and embrace the horrific fate he was beginning to suspect he'd been endowed with at birth...that would be so much easier than the uncertainty that hung over his head like a blade.

But he refused to give that thought traction, at least in this moment. He wasn't so far gone as that. With effort he composed himself, shoved the panic and the terror into the far reaches of his mind along with all the other things he was trying to forget about the past few weeks. "Peddle your rot elsewhere, Skadi," he spat. "I am no jotun, and I will not be your dog of war."

The enthusiasm drained from her face, leaving the planes and angles of it ugly with derision as she sneered at him. "Suit yourself. Perhaps if you are lucky I shall offer again...and we will see if your willpower can deny me once more, Loki."

He clung to the warmth that triumph kindled in his chest as she left the room, even as Gargan began the slow stir that heralded her impending bite. But beneath that glow like a blackened coal was the harsh lump of truth - that as quick as his denial of Skadi had been, he couldn't say with certainty that he wouldn't reach a breaking point someday.

That someday that whisper which had urged him to agree wouldn't become an all-encompassing scream.

* * *

Bruce and Tony had tried their hardest to get Jane to go out for a celebratory dinner with them, but she found herself rebuffing all their attempts. Elation still buoyed her steps, but the weightless feeling of victory was dragged down by a lingering feeling of dismay she couldn't seem to shake - a mantra that chanted in sour counterpoint to her joy.

_Too __late__...__too __late_, it seemed to say, and the dirge of it sapped her enthusiasm.

She'd waved a goodbye to them at the front steps of Stark Tower and made her way across the street to a small deli she frequented, the kindly old man behind the counter offering her a friendly smile when she walked in. Minutes later,with a turkey club sandwich firmly in hand, she was back in the polished confines of her guest room in the upper reaches of the tower, the clean lines cooly modern and a stark contrast to the sorts of lodging she'd become used to as an academic with scarcely two coins to rub together. Leather and glass abounded, interspersed with the bright gleam of metal. It was beautiful in its own stripped-down way, especially with the view out the floor to ceiling windows of one wall, but Jane found it all very impersonal. She missed her familiar lab, her comfortable little kitchen and workspace, the constant bright gleam of sunshine outside. Her fireplace and her rooftop sanctuary.

And if she were honest, she missed Loki.

His irritating condescension and his wry humor. The witty remarks that drew unwilling laughs from her, no matter how she tried to fight it. His outrageous flirting. How his smile shattered the breath in her chest, and the way the sound of her name on his lips did strange things to her knees.

She kept half-expecting him to suddenly appear at any moment. Sometimes when a shadow flickered oddly at the corner of her eyes she turned, mouth opening to share some funny thought that had just popped into her head - only to realize she was still alone.

Loki either couldn't, or wouldn't, come back.

She picked at a sandwich that had turned to dust in her mouth, an unhappy frown tugging at her face. She didn't know how to label the feelings she had for Thor's erstwhile brother - just admitting she had any at all seemed ridiculously dramatic. What sort of woman dithered between any two men, let alone two brothers? She was disgusted with herself and the soap opera she'd made of her emotions.

Her chair scraped along the etched concrete floor as she pushed back from the small table, a bark of sound in the quiet apartment. With a sigh Jane placed the mostly untouched meal in her small refrigerator and drummed restless fingers atop the counter. There were countless trials and tests still to run on the bridge generator, a mountain of work to slog through before it would be ready for practical use...but Jane couldn't deny the wild mad certainty that shoved her out the door of her apartment and down the hall towards the elevators, had her bouncing anxiously as floors ticked past the rising car. She'd never been terribly impulsive, or one to break the rules, but she knew only one thing at this moment.

There was somewhere she needed to be.

The press of her finger against the biometric lock set the lab door swinging slowly open, lights flickering on at the motion of her entrance. All was silent and powered down, the generator sitting dark and inert atop its pedestal. Jane's fingers brushed over the cool metal base of it, her touch activating the holographic interface as the device hummed softly to life.

"Dr. Foster," came her name, startling a shriek from Jane as she peered about the empty room before placing the cultured syllables.

"JARVIS?" she ventured, and could have hit herself upside the head. Of course the computer would be watching, he was everywhere in Stark Tower. Her fingers flew over the semi-opaque interface that had sprang into existence before her face, uploading coordinates and charts from her own personal files that mapped out as best she could the exact location of Asgard amongst the stars.

JARVIS was silent some moments before he replied. "I don't suppose there's any point in advising you against this course of action, is there Dr. Foster?" The resignation in JARVIS' voice brought a grin to Jane's face, wondering how many times he'd repeated the same phrase to Tony over the years.

"Not really," she said, entering the last of her instructions into the device. Fear and anticipation sped headily through her veins, setting her hands trembling as she thumbed off the display. She could very well be stepping beneath the guillotine here, for all she knew. She drew a shuddering breath and clung tightly to the memory of jumping into the spaces between, safe in the circle of Loki's arms. She had to have faith that with his help, she had found her own way.

"Would you care to leave a message for anyone?" JARVIS asked, with a painful gentleness to his tone that brought a lump to Jane's throat. She refused to believe this computer was merely a machine, no matter what Tony said.

"That would be nice, thank you JARVIS. Tell Tony and Erik...that I'm sorry, and I will return as soon as I can. And..." her voice faltered, and she paused to clear her narrowed throat. "Tell Tony thank you."

"Understood," JARVIS intoned softly. "Good luck, Dr. Foster."

With a brave nod Jane pressed the button that would begin the power cycle and lifted the generator from its stand, surprised at the lightness of it. The harsh angles of it bit into her palms as she clutched it tightly, its metal a cool contrast to her sweaty palms. The arc reactor flared to life in its base, setting the filaments wrapped about the frames sparking. In the reflective surface of the glass that walled off a part of the room Jane could see the ghostly image of herself, ethereal in the pale blue wash of light and her hair floating about her head as if she were far below the surface of the sea. Her hands went numb beneath the onslaught of the vibrations, and it was only her eyes that gave her proof she still held the generator. Just as she thought she might drop it altogether, as the numbness spread from her fingers up her arms and into her jaw in a blessed reprieve from the feel of her very bones trembling, the light flared again. Impossibly bright, like a baby's first glimpse of the world, it set her eyes watering even through their clenched lids as it burned ever brighter and brighter - and then it all fell away, into the cracks and crannies between stars, into the tiny sliver of death between one breath and the next, and pulled her along with it.

She was born and died a thousand times over in that brief trip, time as inconsequential to her in that moment as air was to a fish. It was somehow exactly as it had been traveling with Loki, and yet nothing alike. She felt as if unseen hands were trying to fray her very being, teasing apart the threads that made her Jane, and they might have succeeded if not for the anchor of the generator that burned like a beacon in her nerveless fingers. Just as she was perilously close to screaming from the discord of it all, as her tenuous grip on who she was began to slip, she landed hard on her knees atop what seemed to be a dizzying kaleidoscope suspended amongst the stars.

Riotous colors stabbed at her weary eyes, shimmering in every shade and hue possible. The surface beneath her knees felt as solid as stone despite looking like spun glass. Far off above the rainbow road that rolled off into the distance the sky was pierced by all manner of delicate spires and towers that gleamed like molten gold. Overhead was cheery and blue but spangled with stars even at midday, and the edges shaded slowly away into the sable reaches of space at the horizons.

Just as Loki had described.

Tears sprang to her eyes, unbidden. For so many years she'd slogged through opposition, shaking off the sting of criticism and ridicule as she'd dreamt of seeing new worlds - and now finally, here she was.

Definitely no longer on Earth.

Jane forced her stiffened fingers to unfold from around the bridge generator as she tried to wrest obedience from her limbs. A constant wind danced about the lonely expanse, sweeter than any air on Earth, and teased her hair into her watery eyes to blind her. As she raked the mischievous strands from her face, she finally noticed the burnished toes of a pair of boots that had come to a stop before her. Her stare followed the sight of them upwards, climbing the towering view of a giant that stared down at her with eyes that shone like new pennies set in his dark skin.

"Jane Foster of Midgard," the mountainous man rumbled, his voice so deep as to fall almost painfully on her ears. Jane found she could only gape at the golden sight of him, armored and armed so exquisitely her foundering brain could scarcely string two thoughts together. He extended a hand to her, one that dwarfed hers as she took it reflexively, and he hauled her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a bit of dandelion fluff. Although his stern features never shifted she was sure there was more than a hint of wry humor that crept into the copper gaze he finally angled down at her. "Welcome to Asgard."


	15. Chapter 15 - A New Set of Expectations

_Thank you._

_Song(s) of the chapter - Turbine Womb, by Soap&Skin and Skinny Love, by Birdy_

* * *

The towering gilded man had introduced himself as Heimdall as they walked the glimmering road that drew an isolated line towards the heart of Asgard, Jane's wobbling steps growing steadier with every footfall. The heft of the bridge generator in her hand convinced her that this wasn't some dream, some strange fantasy her mind had conjured while she was lying asleep in the haughty surroundings of Stark Tower, and she couldn't quite keep the smile off her face as she trotted beside the taciturn sentry in silence. Rising along their path were gilded monoliths that bracketed the bridge and held the surface of it safely above tossing waves that frothed below to mist the air with the faint briny scent of the ocean. It was much like the sea on Earth only somehow distilled - salt and water and secret silent life blending into an invigorating brew, without any hint of the sour fishy smell Jane associated with the shores at home.

At long last the span culminated in an arching doorway, carved into the side of a vast triangular building that rose in golden terraces from the surrounding splendor. Shining buildings spread as far as the eye could see around it, gleaming beneath the bright sky, and Jane half-expected to see a colossal scaley snout and tail wrapping about the horizons, as if the whole world were some great dragon's trove. Matching sentries in burnished armor towered at each side of the entrance, holding vast spears aloft with edges that glittered wickedly. At Heimdall's approach they nodded in unison and watched with curious eyes as the odd pair walked by.

Guards throughout the corridors repeated this performance as they passed by, some covering their astonishment better than others at Jane's appearance. She quailed beneath their curiosity and tugged at her worn t-shirt and jeans, drab and bland as an old rag amongst all this radiance. Heimdall's uncanny gaze saw her fidget, but he remained silent even as they marched straight through a last set of guards into an immense room that seemed to stretch on forever, the far walls so distant they blurred out of existence. Banners hung from the rafters far overhead in scarlet and gold falls that were echoed in a bright carpet that flung itself down the center of the floor to land, far away, at the foot of a monumental dais. Everywhere she looked were knots of people, garbed in shining finery of cloth and armor.

Jane's nerve almost broke at the sight of such opulence, and she froze at the edge of that carpeted aisle. It was as if she'd stepped straight into the history books, into the great palace of a Roman emperor or some Sapa Inca - only this was even more resplendent than anything that had ever been seen on Earth. She'd scoffed at the title of 'gods' that the Asgardians had been given but this overwhelming scene was almost enough to make her rescind that doubt. Heimdall's indifferent back filled her vision as he marched on, and she struggled against the urge to hide behind the nearest column and send herself back home.

That might make her feel better, but she'd never find answers running away.

She clutched at the bridge generator in her hands as if it were a shield, took a breath against the sudden flutter that swarmed in her stomach, and plunged into the wake left by Heimdall as he parted the crowd. Down, down that long aisle they walked, and silence trailed behind them as courtiers paused their conversations to gape. Jane could feel her face burning as crimson as the threads beneath her feet that she stared at, willing herself to simply put one foot before another. Step by step, that was the only way she'd make it that long walk.

After the longest few minutes of her life Heimdall drew to a halt at the base of the dais, Jane so focused on her pace that she nearly bumped into the back of him. Atop those steps crouched a throne that unfurled golden wings, looming over the court like some great gryphon, and in that chair sat a man that stared down at Jane with a single eye that seemed to hold all the wisdom of the cosmos in its blue depths. At his side was a smaller gilt chair, and a regal woman gazed curiously at the sight of Jane.

"Heimdall?" the man questioned, his soft voice carrying clearly throughout the silent throne room.

"Your Majesty," the towering man rumbled as he removed the curving helmet from his head and tucked it beneath one arm, sketching a small bow. "I bring before you Jane Foster, of Midgard."

Jane shifted from one foot to another. Was she supposed to curtsey? Bow? Do _something_ other than stand like a ninny? She was rescued from her chagrin by the sound of her name, warped oddly as if it leapt from a strangled throat.

"Jane!" came the hoarse cry, and sudden motion rocked the crowd as people stumbled apart, knocked aside by a heedless arm as Thor shoved his way through, as resplendent as ever in shining armor and a bright cloak. Her lips had scarcely begun to form his name when he swept her into an embrace, crushing the breath from her against his immovable chest as her toes swung uselessly above the floor. Jane laughed and returned the hug as best she could while still clutching her device, all awkwardness forgotten in the face of Thor's overwhelming joy. "You're alive!"

At the soft clearing of a throat Thor let her slide from his grasp far enough to touch the ground once more, but kept an arm about her shoulders and steered her closer to the foot of the dais, his broad grin sparkling up at the man and woman seated atop it.

"Mother, Father...this is Jane!" His cheer was infectious, and more than a few of the surrounding courtiers broke into smiles, Jane included. He turned to take both of her hands within his own, and wonder widened his stare as he pelted her with questions. "How is it that you live Jane? And how are you here? We had thought you lost, with a wound as grievous as the one you suffered." His eyes peered about the empty space behind and beside her. "Is Loki with you? Did he bring you here somehow?" His search dropped to the bridge generator in her hands, and his face fell along with it.

"No," Jane shook her head, and lifted the small square for better inspection. "I came with this. An Einstein-Rosen bridge, just like we talked about! The Bifrost made miniature." And then the full meaning of Thor's words sunk in, and Jane's heart faltered beneath the weight of the odd term Thor had used so many weeks before, the one that had seemed ripe with such horrific implications and had been rattling around in her brain ever since, like the clatter of old dried bones.

_Eptirmál__._

It took her a moment to voice her question, despite the answer that sat already like wet concrete in her belly. "Loki's not here in Asgard with you?"

* * *

"How could you?!"

Shock had kept Jane silent throughout the somber recounting of events, but a rising flood of righteous indignation washed away the restraints that had held her tongue.

"That has to be the most barbaric thing I've ever heard!" Jane sprang from her seat to glare indignantly at each of them in turn, aware that she was probably breaking every rule of etiquette ever written but too angry to care. At least they'd retired to a small adjacent room away from the prying eyes and ears of the court, the three royals and herself assembled about the table.

The snowy-haired man that Thor had introduced to her as King Odin examined her outburst dispassionately while Queen Frigga's sharp eyes drank in every detail of Jane's reaction. "Do you presume to know more about the political situations in the Nine Realms than I, Jane Foster of Midgard?" he asked mildly.

She blinked at that and stuffed back down the sharp retort that almost flew free. She should probably try not to spark some sort of inter-dimensional diplomatic crisis, if possible. At least not on her first trip off Earth. "No," she mumbled unhappily, chastised by the air of ancient wisdom that Odin wore like a cloak. She found her seat once more and folded her hands atop the scarred table, trying to calm her frothing emotions. Judging from the storm that was brewing on Thor's face across the table, he had temper enough for the both of them.

"It was not my preferred option either, Jane," Thor growled, and shot a dark glare at his father. "I do not trust the Jotun."

"It matters not," Odin barked at Thor, almost by rote, and Jane got the impression this was a well-worn subject between them. "Loki has transgressed, we all agree on that. There was no other option that would silence Jotunheim and still preserve your brother."

Jane shuddered. Back in her small lab, so many times over the past few weeks, hatred had gouged harsh lines onto his face every time the jotun had been mentioned. What must Loki be enduring at the hands of those he abhorred so much? "He will live, and I'd be the first to say he has to pay for what he's done - to Jotunheim and to my own world. But like this?" Fear for Loki, for what sort of creature might return from such horror seized her throat and she swallowed against its cold grip. "He already thinks you view him as little more than a political pawn. You will be lucky if he ever forgives you for this."

Sorrow pressed itself upon Odin's features, and he regarded Jane quietly for some moments. "Do you think that I am not aware of this?" he questioned softly, and Jane felt an answering stir of sympathy at the hopeless arch of his brows. "I do not have the luxury of arranging in which order I get to be a father and a King."

Jane could scarcely comprehend the impossibility of the situation, and she fell into silence. When no one seemed inclined to fill the empty space with words Queen Frigga rose from her chair, liquid with a dancer's grace despite her aging limbs. "I am sure that Jane Foster must be tired after her journey here and the stress of this news. Let us all retire for now, to rest and collect our thoughts, and we shall have dinner in her honor this evening." She extended a hand to her son, then gestured with it to Jane. "Thor, would you be kind enough to show Jane Foster to a suitable suite of rooms?"

He nodded dutifully, standing to extend an arm to Jane before leading them from the room. Along a complex maze of passages and stairways they paced, the muscles of Thor's thick arm wound into tight knots beneath her fingers.

"I am sorry you were drawn into my family's misfortune, Jane," he sighed, as they walked. "It has cast a long shadow over your arrival, which is one of the happiest days I can recall."

As they passed through a lonely section of corridor, removed from the view of any sentry, Thor slowed to a stop and wrapped his fingers about her upper arms tightly, his strong grip just shy of painful. His eyes were impossibly blue as they scoured her face, the same bright shade that curled at the heart of a flame, that had haunted her for a year every time she caught sight of the cloudless New Mexican sky. A shiver traced its way up Jane's spine under that gaze.

"I can scarcely believe you are here. That you are real," he said softly. His head tilted towards her, bringing his lips almost to her own - close enough to kiss her if she just lifted onto her toes.

If she wanted it badly enough.

But neither of them moved to close that gap, and after long moments had stretched themselves sharp he took a tiny step back, the slow slide of his hands from her arms breaking Jane from whatever spell had frozen her heart and limbs.

"I am glad to see you alive, Jane. More glad than you can imagine," he murmured.

His choice of words seemed happy enough to Jane. So why then did the slash of his teeth seem less like a smile, and more like skin parting beneath some unbearable weight? Before she could puzzle out the answers in his expression he had turned away, leading them onwards once more.

The door he stopped before was twice her height, towering over even Thor when he paused at the threshold, the fingers of one hand tapping an absent rhythm out against the doorjamb. Jane hovered behind, reluctance slowing her steps. He would open the door, show her her room, and who knew when she would have a chance to be alone with him again? She opened her mouth, wide enough for all the things she'd stored up for the past year to find their way out, all the speeches and thoughts and dreams she'd bottled up and hidden away as she'd waited to see him again - but what flew from her lips was raw and fledgeling, and it fell awkwardly between them rather than soaring.

"You promised you'd return," she accused the back of his golden head.

Her heart squeezed out a few strangled beats before he swung about, the square of his shoulders softening about the edges. "Jane, I..."

"I waited, and waited. A _deal__,_ you said," she broke in over the top of him, her carefully balanced heart teetering beneath words she'd held back for so long before falling to shatter like a teacup on the floor. "And you did return, eventually. Just not to me. I should have known something was going on when they sent me to Norway. Did you want to avoid me?"

"What? No! We only meant to keep you safe!" One hand curled into a fist at Thor's side, turning the skin of his knuckles white. "If my brother had found out about you in the grip of his madness, he might have harmed you, just to hurt me. I would never have forgiven SHIELD. Or myself."

"And when it was all over? After the fighting ended, before you took Loki home? You couldn't even be bothered to figure out how a telephone worked?" She hated how her words cracked as she went on. "I would have been happy, just to hear your voice. Even a letter. Something. Just to know you'd thought of me. You might have nearly all the time in the universe Thor...but I'm just a human."

"I am sorry, Jane. I did not think of it that way." The breath Thor blew out was heavy, and it stirred the errant pale strands that hung closest to his mouth as he bowed his head. "There is no excuse for my behavior. After that, I do not blame you for giving up on me. Nor for what happened with Loki."

She flinched, the reminder of her confession sharp and unexpected like stepping on a tack. "It's not - it's not like that, between us." She swept the shards of her heart into something resembling a dignified pile and lifted her chin. "At first I'd lost a bet. And then, he seemed so sad. It meant nothing." The lie burned on her tongue like turpentine, and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. "He's hardly kept his low opinion of humanity a secret."

Thor's eyes softened with comprehension, and in that moment he looked much like Odin, despite his youth. "Nothing? He called me 'brother' once more, you know. As he was begging me to let him go back." His hand came up, the flesh and sinew gifted with strength enough to lift Mjolnir, and brushed a hank of hair from her face with a gentleness that somehow hurt worse than a blow. "Back to Midgard, so he could save you."

The breath didn't seem to stay in Jane's lungs long enough to do her any good, and she couldn't hold Thor's gaze. Couldn't meet those longing eyes, not while her stomach knotted with worry for another man. "What can be done? We can't just leave him there, Thor," she said at long last.

"I know." The line of his mouth grew grim. "His six week sentence ends tomorrow, but I don't believe that the jotun will simply let him walk free. Odin would never condone my going to Jotunheim to liberate him, unless Skadi has broken her vows - at least not for another few days. But now that you are here, with your Midgardian magic, we would not have to look to the All-father for passage."

A glimmer of that fearless grin she'd loved so much broke through Thor's melancholy, the one that was equal parts bravado and humor. He reached for her free hand and squeezed the fingers carefully in farewell. "I shall return in two hours time, to escort you to dinner," he promised. "And then afterwards...shall we see which of my friends are interested in an adventure?"

* * *

She'd made it through dinner somehow, fidgeting at Thor's right hand and fielding countless questions about Midgard from curious Aesir. They were all kind, but there were too many eyes here, and they all seemed to be focused on her. Her palms had sweated constantly and her heart hadn't stopped pounding since she'd stepped into the banquet hall on Thor's arm, tucked and wrapped and laced by servants into a cunning fall of raw pewter silk that the queen had sent to her room. It shone, lustrous like a grey pearl beneath the lamplight that reflected off the golden surfaces the Aesir seemed to favor for everything, and even Jane had to admit it looked impressive next to Thor's silvered armor.

They'd moved to the solar of Thor's own rooms after the last course, she and Thor and the handful of friends she'd seen come to Earth. He'd introduced them to her finally - the good-humored giant Volstagg, the quiet Hogun, Fandral of the incorrigible flirting, and the lady Sif.

It hadn't escaped Jane's notice how Sif's eyes followed Thor about the room, as if she were a compass and he North. The dark-haired woman was striking, as commanding and tall and confident as Frigga - everything Jane would never be. These were the sorts of women that had surrounded Thor and Loki their whole lives? Her borrowed finery suddenly felt silly, as if she were a sparrow that had tried to dress itself in peacock plumes, and Jane shrank into a corner of the couch she perched on while Thor paced before the fire and laid out his plans.

"Thor. Surely Jotunheim will not break their oaths, not with such scrutiny upon them," Fandral said when he finished, leaning against the mantle. "It seems a foolish thing to risk angering Odin over. We all know what happened the last time we traveled there, against his wishes."

Thor grimaced. "I was in the wrong then, and I paid dearly for it. But we have every right to demand Loki's safe return, to ensure that it happens smoothly. And if Skadi does go back on her vows, Father will know. We will be vindicated."

"Maybe it's better that he stays there," Volstagg muttered around the rim of his goblet of mead. "With his own kind. It's not right, that a jotun pretend to the throne of Asgard."

Fury clouded on Thor's face as he rounded on Volstagg, punching an accusatory finger towards the reclining giant. "How dare you? Do you not recall the time you were gored by Gullinbursti, the great golden boar? Who healed your wounds as you squalled like a newborn babe? You would have bled out right there on the plains of Vigrid if not for Loki."

Fandral chortled, and Thor turned on him next. "And you, Fandral...who talked the dwarven king Hriedmar out of beheading you on the spot when you insulted his daughter? It certainly wasn't your own charm that spared your life that day. I could go on and on. We _all_ owe Loki debts, regardless of what he's done lately. If you won't come with me for who he is now, come with me for who he was. For who he might be again."

His impassioned plea drew Jane from the wall of silence she'd been hiding behind. "I know it seems crazy for me to say this, given what he's done to Jotunheim and to my own world, but I don't think even Loki deserves to be abandoned." Every head in the room swiveled towards her in surprise, as if they'd forgotten she was there entirely. "I wouldn't be here on Asgard, seeing new worlds as I'd always dreamed of, without his help. He has become a...friend of sorts, and I owe him a debt as well. But I'm just a - a scholar. If things go badly I'm not going to be of any help to Thor."

"You're taking Jane with you?" Fandral burst out incredulously, only to subside at Thor's pointed glance. Jane didn't exactly blame Fandral for his reluctance to have her along. The scar on her chest was a bleak reminder of her usefulness in a fight.

"It is Jane's device. She has as much right to be there as anyone," he said. "Between the five of us I think we can keep her safe."

It was Sif who stirred first. "I will come with you. If it is important to you, Thor, then it should be important to us. And if the mortal can find compassion, even after what Loki has done, then so can we." She glared hotly about at the other three men, each of whom had the grace to look ashamed.

"I will come also," Hogun chimed in at last, in softly accented tones.

Fandral heaved a sigh. "I never could deny a lady in need. My sword is at your disposal, fair Jane," he said with a gallant bow, and his outrageous charm teased a laugh from her.

"Oh, alright," Volstagg drained the last of his cup and punctuated his assent by slamming it atop the sidetable as he stood. "It's been rather boring around here anyways, I suppose."

A grin broke onto Thor's face, and he clapped Hogun and Volstagg on the back, staggering even their bulk. "I never lost faith in you, friends! We leave at first light, from this very room."

"But, I have no idea where Jotunheim is," Jane protested. "I need...star charts, maps maybe...something that I can use to calculate our arrival point."

"By the Norns," Volstagg laughed. "She's as bad as Loki. Research, research, research."

Thor scratched idly at his neat beard before throwing Jane a wink. "I suppose we shall have to try the library, then."

Jane couldn't keep the grin off her face as she jumped up to follow Thor from the room.

* * *

The first thing she noticed about the library was the smell - the powdery scent of old paper that tickled the throat like a swallowed moth. As Thor threw open the great double doors the scent of it rushed outwards like a wave, powerful enough to nearly knock her back. Rows of books rose like scripted brickwork to brush the ceiling far overhead, stacked and ordered as carefully as the work of any great mason. Towering windows broke up the walls of words, cloaked with velvet drapes to guard against any sunshine, the enemy of printed pages anywhere. Tables and chairs clustered in knots about the polished stone floor, waiting to be piled with stacks of research.

She could easily see Loki at any one of them, his dark head bowed over the gleaming wood as he pored over some piece of wisdom as intently as he had her _Eddas__._

As she wandered in absent circles, trailing greedy fingers over the buttery leather of spines printed in languages she'd never seen, Thor gathered an armful of scrolls and parchment. She winced as he dumped them carelessly in a pile atop the nearest table.

"I know not which of these you might need," he offered as an apology, and Jane smiled at the way he rubbed the back of his neck. "I would try this one first, though."

"You never spent much time here, did you?" she asked, as her hand reached for the scroll he indicated and she sat herself on the embroidered cushion of the chair.

"Not outside of what was required." He pulled up a chair beside her and slung his bulk into it carelessly. "It scarcely needs saying that this was more Loki's haunt than mine."

The huge scroll was weighted at each end with wooden rollers, and it opened smoothly beneath her touch. Spread out across the expanse of parchment was a recreation of the rough diagram Thor had drawn for her so long ago, the great tree branching into the Nine Realms. Only unlike Thor's crude sketch this was exquisitely detailed - each realm's depiction filled with tiny whimsical drawings of its characteristics and people, all vibrantly colored. It was as if she'd unearthed a medieval illuminated manuscript, one that time had never faded with its touch.

She ran a reverent hand over the illustrations, the parchment cool beneath her fingertips. "This is beautiful," she breathed, and squinted closer. Each of the realms showed their major pathway, branching off from the trunk of Yggdrasil, but there were also myriad tangles of twigs that crossed between the realms in spidery lines. Around all of them marched tiny rows of numbers and equations, cleverly worked into the elaborate pattern of the bark - calculations that had already been done for her.

A thousand hidden pathways, mapped out so very carefully in an luminous blend of art and science. The labors of a lifetime, perhaps...if one lived a very long life.

"This is Loki's work, isn't it?" she asked as she began to take down notes on the piece of foolscap Thor had dug from a nearby desk. It was framed as a question but there was no doubt in her mind. Awe and a fierce jealousy gnawed at her from the inside out - that Loki had world enough, and time, to voyage anywhere his heart desired.

Thor nodded, and his own hand traced slowly over the twisting pathways that curled across the map. "He was so proud of this. I know not how long he spent on it, but it must have taken him ages to explore and then create this." An ugly twist of the lips marred Thor's handsome face. "I told him...that drawing and coloring was for children. I often mocked him like that."

Her pen paused at the shame that thickened his voice, and she set it aside to lay a hand over the top of Thor's. "I think...we often say cruel things to those closest to us," she ventured. "We are careless and take love for granted. Especially those of us who have been given an abundance." She glanced up at him, but the face she saw at that moment existed only in her memory and collections of photos. "I told my mother that I hated her, when she was dying. Maybe I just wanted to test her. Maybe it was a little bit true, I don't know. There's hardly any difference between love and hate, after all. Just a turn of the magnet, for repulsion to attract."

"Jane." Thor turned his hand beneath hers and clasped it, her fingers swallowed up inside his grip. A small sad smile just brushed the corners of his mouth. "You are as wise as you are lovely. Even if you speak of things that sometimes make no sense."

"Hardly," she laughed, banishing the melancholia. "I just listen well."

He studied her for a moment. "Then perhaps _that_ is your magic, despite your denial of it's existence. For no one seems to remain unaffected by you for long."

She felt the slow creep of heat over her cheeks, and drew her hand from his to pick up her pen once more. Bending back over her notes, they both lapsed into silence until Thor stood to leave with a murmured farewell.

She could still feel his gaze like the brush of fingers against her hair, long after he left, as she worked late into the night.

* * *

A gentle tap at her door woke her early the next morning, eyes still gritty from her late night. She struggled out of the covers that were piled thick atop her ornate bed, the fine weave of them whispering sinfully against her skin. Thankfully the nightgown that had been lain out on her bed when she'd dragged herself back to her rooms was long enough to be decent, because she couldn't find any sort of robe before the knocking came again.

She cracked the door open hesitantly, not wanting to give some random servant an eyeful. The nightgown might have been nearly floor-length, but it was still sheer enough to leave little to the imagination.

"Jane Foster?" The voice that called to her through the gap was a woman's. Jane opened the door wider to find Queen Frigga standing on the other side, two servant girls with laden arms behind her.

"Your Majesty," Jane croaked, her sleepy brain coming wide awake. She rubbed at her bleary eyes and opened the door all the way, hiding partially behind it. Was she really about to entertain royalty in her pajamas? "I'm sorry, I hope you weren't waiting long. I didn't get to bed until late."

Frigga swept in looking immaculate despite the early hour, the servants following in her wake. "When do you leave for Jotunheim?" she asked as Jane turned from the door.

Jane blinked in confusion, both at the question and the whirlwind of activity. "How did you know we were going? Did Thor tell you already?"

A smile graced Frigga's lips as she shook her head, her curls like beaten bronze in the morning light. "No, he keeps his own counsel. But I know my son, and I have seen him chafe these past weeks. As soon as you showed up with your key to the pathways, I knew that he would waste no time asking you to go. And I know that he also would forget completely anything practical...such as ensuring you don't freeze to death on Jotunheim."

At her gesture the servants set their trunks down atop the disheveled bed and lifted one ornate lid. Frigga began to rummage through the contents and Jane drifted over, curiosity finally overcoming her embarrassment.

"We haven't had anyone as tiny as you in the palace in some time," Frigga mused as she sifted through the first chest. "I thought at first perhaps the clothing of the dwarves might fit you, but their women are far stouter than you. These are the best options I could find in the storerooms and the armory."

Frigga bustled about, holding up shirts and trousers to Jane with a critical eye, the pile of discards growing ever larger. At last she seemed to settle on a pair of brown leather pants that melted like butter over Jane's arm when Frigga passed them to her. A long-sleeved woolen tunic followed, its plush yarn dyed a deep charcoal. "Try those," Frigga said, and the air of command in her voice was so natural that Jane was halfway to the adjacent bathroom before she even realized she'd begun moving.

"You aren't going to say that it's too dangerous for me to go, like Fandral did?" Jane asked through the door as she wrestled into the clothing, her fingers fumbling with unfamiliar lacings and fastenings. She had to admit Frigga had an eye for this sort of thing though, as the clothing fit her near perfectly. "Or suggest that I should just open a bridge for Thor and wait for him to come back?" A few hasty brushstrokes took her hair from rat's nest to mostly presentable.

She pushed back into the bedchamber and a pair of thick socks and high boots were pressed into her hands. Hopping up onto the bed Jane stuffed the first of her feet into the them and wiggled her toes experimentally, lacing the knee-high uppers tightly. At least they were practical, with sturdy soles and interiors lined against the elements. A far better option than her ratty tennis shoes would have been.

"No, Jane," Frigga paused her search in the second chest to fix her with a piercing eye. "I believe you are the most important member of this outing."

Gentle Frigga was suddenly a fierce, terrifying sight to behold. Jane shut her mouth with a nod and concentrated on lacing her other boot. When she'd straightened, the two servants were holding open a sleeveless leather overcoat for her to shrug into, the same shade as her pants. It was stiff and fitted closely to her body as they tugged on the buckles and laces that held it closed, crusted with wandering patterns of metal studs worked in brass over the shoulders and along the lower border where it came to an end at her mid-thigh.

"It's not much in the way of protection," Frigga said apologetically as Jane's fingers brushed over the ridges formed by the metal. "I dare not give you real armor. If you have not been trained to wear it, it will often only make things worse. But this is thicker than clothing at least, and warmer as well."

It was odd, being encased in so many layers of unfamiliar fabrics. Not uncomfortable exactly, but she fidgeted beneath the unfamiliar weight nonetheless. "I hope I don't need to test it out."

Frigga turned back to the second chest, and pulled from it an armful of emerald wool. When she turned back to Jane it was almost hesitantly, and there was a strange searching look on her face as she extended the fabric to Jane. "You will also need this. Consider it my gift to you."

Jane took the cloth, surprised by the weight of it as she shook it out. It was a cloak of brilliant green, almost a twin of the cape she had seen Loki wear, only this had a hood and was lined throughout with some sort of ebon fur that curled softly about her fingers. Around the border was worked an elaborate pattern of flowers in black, bell-shaped blossoms that arched in broad sprays so lifelike she could almost smell their spicy musk.

"That's a coincidence," Jane traced along the petals of one. "I know these flowers."

"_Minna_," Frigga supplied, with a strange small smile. She took the cloak from Jane's hands and gently laid it over her shoulders, clasping it at the throat with another _minna_ blossom cast in brass that gleamed against the vivid green. It seemed to cling almost affectionately to her frame before belling out about her feet, stopping just short of the floor. A shy smile tilted Jane's mouth as she buried her hands in the downy lining.

"I probably look ridiculous," she muttered. "Like a runaway from the set of Lord of the Rings."

Silently Frigga buckled a small dagger about Jane's hips and then grasped her by the arm and marched her over to the mirror that leaned in a heavy stand against the far wall. Jane almost tripped the first few steps as the cloak billowed about her ankles, until she discovered the rhythm of walking in it. When they stopped she blinked up from watching her feet to find a stranger staring back at her.

That woman looked nothing like an astrophysicist that was deathly afraid of spiders and cut herself peeling apples.

She stood tall in the unforgiving leather, bits of metal winking defiantly. The high boots lent her an air of command, the elegant cloak a sense of mystery, and the dagger a dash of danger. She looked like an adventurer from the stories her father had loved so much - one of the dwarven company, off to the Lonely Mountain perhaps.

Ready to explore the realms.

"Wow," was the most articulate thing she could manage, but Frigga laughed regardless.

"You look almost Aesir, Jane Foster. Are you certain none of your ancestors were from the land of ice and snow? Our men were known to be rather free with their affections."

"Definitely not. Just plain English stock." She frowned at the ugly slash of her scar, standing red and silver in the vee of her shirt like an exclamation mark, and she tugged at the laces of her collar ineffectually trying to cover it.

"Nay, Jane." Frigga's hands covered hers, stilled their restless motion. "We do not hide scars on Asgard."

"This one should be covered," she said bitterly. "It says, 'Here is Jane - too weak to look after herself.' Hardly inspiring."

"No," Frigga smiled down at her. "It says, 'Here is Jane - too strong to be beaten by death.' Wear it with pride, and keep its lessons close to you. We can all do with more courage at times."

Impulsively Jane threw her arms around Frigga's waist, squeezing her in a hug before she realized the gravity of her faux pas. "I'm so sorry!" she gasped as she leapt back, appalled at her disrespect. "I just...thank you, so much. For everything."

Frigga seemed startled, but her shock melted into a smile that warmed her eyes. "You are most welcome, Jane Foster. It has been some time since I have gotten to spoil another woman. The sad fate of a mother that has only sons, I suppose."

Knocking came at the door, and one of the servants rushed to open it. Thor paced into the room, freezing mid-step at the sight of both Frigga and Jane. He couldn't have looked more stunned if Jane had actually drawn her little dagger and stabbed him with it, she figured.

"Jane?" He blinked a few times before his eyes narrowed suspiciously at Frigga, although humor still lurked in their depths. "And Mother. I should have known nothing would get past you." He strode over, the room suddenly too small to contain his presence, and dropped a kiss onto his mother's cheek.

"She's been very kind this morning," Jane said, and gestured to the clothes she now wore. "I think I will be a lot happier in this than my old t-shirt and jeans."

"Certainly." Chagrin chased across Thor's face. "I should have thought of that myself, I'm sorry."

He reached out to her cloak, working the wool and fur between his fingers thoughtfully before angling a look at Frigga, who merely gazed mildly back. "I might have suggested red, but..green does seem to do your beauty more justice, Jane."

The comment seemed far too innocuous to deserve the wistful tone he said them in.

He shook himself and a broad smile finally settled on his face as he extended one hand towards the doorway, but it was rigid and plastic. "Shall we be off then?"

With a last smile at Frigga she nodded, snagging the satchel she'd found to tuck her bridge generator into on her way past the chest of drawers and slinging it over one shoulder. The walk to Thor's rooms was short but it seemed to take forever - tension she couldn't place gelling the air between them, making her feel as if she were walking against the current of a river. She was about to ask him if she had upset him somehow when they arrived and Thor pushed the door open brusquely, the motion cutting off Jane's words.

The remainder of his friends were already gathered, all turning expectant eyes towards them as they entered. Eyebrows raised at Jane's appearance, but no one said a thing. Nerves were worked into too fine a frenzy for small talk.

"Are we ready?" Thor asked, and they all nodded. Jane pulled the bridge generator from her satchel and motioned everyone together into a tight cluster around her, the touch of her fingers bringing the arc reactor to life. Holograms flitted like phantoms in the space before her as she brought up the coordinates she'd programmed into the device the night before.

"Alright. Here we go." Jane braced herself and initiated the power sequence, watched with a held breath that burned in her lungs as the circle of faces was whitewashed by the glow of the generator. Her eyes stayed locked on Thor's, watering until the brightness forced her lids shut and in the shivering dance of planets the whole world fell away.


	16. Chapter 16 - A Change in the Season

_Thank you, everyone. I hope to try and get one more chapter out this week, on my usual Monday/Thursday schedule, but after that I will be heading out on vacation. If I don't get one up Thursday, don't despair...I will return in a week or two!_

_Song(s) of the chapter: The Last Man, by Clint Mansell...Mother, Mother, by SOLA-MI...and Can You See Jane, by Patrick Doyle_

* * *

She'd known going into this that Jotunheim was the home of the frost giants, and it stood to reason that it would be cold. Colder than Tromsø had been, perhaps. But knowing something cerebrally was not the same as experiencing it, and nothing could have prepared Jane for those first few breaths her desperate lungs heaved in after slipping between the realms. How the wind itself seemed made of razors that sliced her chest into ribbons, cutting the nerves to her diaphragm as it stole the air from her. Ice and snow scoured her exposed face, stinging like a slap until she lifted the hood of her cloak and buried her face far back in the depths of it. The thickly furred edges of it gave her just enough respite from the howling gale to catch her breath once more, and as she huddled into the warm embrace of it she thanked Frigga a thousand times over. This was so much worse than Norway, than anything she could have prepared for on her own.

Thor and the others seemed to scarcely take note of the conditions, snapping to attention the moment they all stumbled onto the frozen ground from the bridge Jane had created. Hands clutched at the hilts of various weapons, wary and alert. As far as Jane could tell not a living creature stirred in the lonely maze of ice, tumbled about in rough blocks and boulders as if a great igloo had crumbled. Dotted about were broken columns, spires that had cracked and collapsed beneath the relentless gnashing teeth of the wind and snow. The only sign of anything intact that had been created by hands was a towering seat carved from the frozen landscape in the distance, with wide uneven steps hewn up a slope to it. Beside it some sort of lights flickered around a hole punched into the cliffside that rose like a frozen wave, looming blue-green over the rough plain they stood on.

"We search for Skadi," Thor said as he set off in the direction of that wintry throne, without the slightest sign of doubt that everyone would follow. Jane supposed that was partly what it meant to be the crown prince. Always expecting unquestioning obedience. Had he treated even his own brother in this same brusque manner? She wanted to believe he hadn't...but what little she'd been shown of their relationship spoke otherwise. The rest of the party fell into a practiced formation, ringing around Jane with Thor in the lead as their long legs picked an easy path over the rough ground, forcing Jane into an undignified scramble as she struggled to keep up.

As they drew closer, she began to see that some of those formations she'd thought columns had eyes, ruby studs set in their hairless blue faces that focused hungrily on the approaching party. Her heart began to hammer even as the jotun simply watched the Aesir pass, for they were each half again as tall as Thor, the tallest of the group, and their oddly angular physiques were heavy with muscle.

It was a nerve-wracking gauntlet for Jane, and beneath the cover of her cloak she clutched at the satchel that held her bridge generator, as if just the promise of escape could keep her safe. She didn't doubt that Thor and his friends would do their best to protect her, but against creatures as enormous and powerful as these? A single blow would end her. She couldn't for the life of her reconcile these giants with the lean form of Loki, even as tall as he was. It was no wonder that they had found him deficient.

There was a figure lounging in that seat, a woman with white hair and crimson eyes and cut-glass features, whose hungry smile belied her nonchalant posture. There was no token of rank, no crown that sat upon her brow, but it was obvious from the way the other jotun looked to her for cues that this was their queen. Thor lead them fearlessly to the base of those steps, his golden hair standing out from the shadowy azure surroundings like a shaft of sunlight piercing the ocean.

"Skadi," he called up, and Jane winced at his blatant omittance of her title even as Skadi narrowed her eyes. "It has been six weeks. I demand the return of Prince Loki, who has served his sentence as agreed."

Lazily Skadi unfurled her lean frame from the seat, looking primal and wicked in her fur-trimmed armor. Ropes made from teeth and claws clattered about her neck as she slowly descended, gleaming bones that had been torn from countless beasts. Jane shivered at the size of them all and prayed she never met their creatures of origin.

"Certainly." She tilted her head thoughtfully and snowy hair spilled in an avalanche over one shoulder. "Such devotion to one who is not even kin should be commended. Would that you felt as compassionate towards all jotun, Thor." Those unearthly red eyes swung about towards Jane and seemed to pierce the dark depths of her hood easily. "Or perhaps you simply make a habit of collecting strays. Such an odd taste in pets the Aesir have developed."

Thor made no motion save the slightest twitch of his hand towards Mjolnir, but it was enough to have the rest of the Aesir start for their own weapons. "I will brook no insult aimed at Jane in my presence, Skadi." The low growl of his voice held a promise of violence that lifted Skadi's brows.

"You would war over a mortal?"

Thor's eyes were flat with distaste. "I would gladly spill your blood over even less pretense, but that is neither here nor there. I have come for Loki, and will not be distracted."

A musical laugh drifted from Skadi as she turned from them towards the tunnel that yawned in the cliff beside her throne. "Very well. Know this though, little doubting prince - I keep my vows." She beckoned to them before setting off, plunging into the shadowed mouth of the cavern.

"I do not like this. It reeks of a trap, Thor," Hogun broke his silence to point out, and Sif murmured her agreement.

"Perhaps." Thor shrugged. "But what choice do we have? She would not be suicidal enough to make any real attempt on our lives."

They marched behind Skadi and Jane twitched at the feeling of being swallowed by some vast beast as they passed into the passageway, amongst the icicles that reached like tusks towards each other. The close walls of the tunnel were oppressive even to someone of Jane's stature, the walls seeming to press together in their wake. That feeling was only relieved when the passage ended in a doorway that led to a large room, perfectly domed as if a bubble had been trapped when this world first froze.

It was dim, lit only by some indistinct source of light that trickled down from far overhead, but what Jane could make out set her heart plummeting, careening painfully off each rib as it fell. Her eyes told her brain what they saw but it couldn't seem to make sense of the picture, the whole scene a jigsaw that had been rearranged all wrong.

That couldn't be Loki, sagging pale and motionless in those cruel shackles, green scales sliding about his neck in nauseating patterns.

Hanging like so much empty meat.

The mirror-finished floor nearly tripped her up as she ran across the distance that separated them, terror a thistle in her mouth she couldn't speak around. Behind her she heard Thor's voice rise in fury.

"What have you done to him?"

"Nothing he did not deserve," Skadi spat back. "Fear not, he lives still. Again. For the moment."

The comment contained a puzzle Jane couldn't be bothered to solve at that moment. She slid to a stop just as the serpentine necklace Loki wore raised a head and hissed death at her. This close she could just see the shallow rise and fall of his chest. She swallowed her fear so that she could speak, the spiny lump of it scratching her throat raw as it went.

"Loki?"

There was no noise but the quiet rustle of the others drawing closer behind her. She held her breath until spots swam before her eyes, terrified that the slightest sound might drown out any faint sign of response from him, but he never spoke. The black lace of his lashes never stirred against the ivory of his cheeks. Jane's fingers burned with the need to reach out, but the snake's heavy head danced figures in the air between them, so she balled them into fists at her sides and tried her hardest to draw a full breath.

At first she thought the serpent was agitated by her presence, weaving to ward her off. But the snake kept rising, high and higher until it towered over both her and Loki. It wasn't until that great mouth gaped and fangs snapped forth that the sick surety of what was about to happen punched her in the gut. Like lightning from the heavens the creature struck, burying those daggers of bone deeply into the white column of Loki's throat.

He jerked into motion at that, his back bowing as the tendons of his neck tried to crawl out from his skin. Eyes flew open, wide and unseeing and glazed with agony. Something that might have been a scream weeks ago tore from his ruined throat. It was only a shadow of itself, but even that ghost of a cry made her want to claw at her ears. She knew now, if anyone ever asked her, what sound a soul made when it bled.

The snake stayed fixed there, pumping venom into Loki's veins as he thrashed like a broken puppet beneath it. Webs of grey spread across his skin as the poison sowed death in its wake, mapping out the slow ruin of a life. She heard vaguely, over the sound of Loki's misery, Thor's own cry of horror.

The dagger at her side sprang into her hand before she'd even realized she'd drawn it. Without a thought, without hesitation, without regard for how monumentally foolish it was, she raised the blade and brought the little knife down on that hateful serpent's head.

She'd hoped that at best she might draw it away, give it a new focus and prod it into releasing Loki. Maybe then one of the others would have a chance to kill it. What she didn't expect was for the needle point of the dagger to fall upon the polished black eye of the snake. For the keen metal to punch through the orb and thin bone below. For it to bury itself up to the hilt in the eyesocket of the snake with the sickening slide of metal into flesh.

She only knew she couldn't watch as another grain of Loki's life fell through the hourglass.

The head tossed upwards, ripping her hand from the grip of the knife as the snake hissed with pain, the motion flinging drops of venom about to smoke on the polished floor. Some of it spattered across Jane's hands when she flung them up to shield her face, as the snake fell like a cut rope from Loki's neck to thrash about on the ground. It burned with an exquisite sort of agony that stole her voice entirely, denying her the release of crying after her first scream. A pain so bright and brilliant it exploded in constellations behind her clenched eyelids. Once, in college, she'd spilled a stray drop of sulfuric acid on herself and thought she wanted to die. This was a thousand...a _million_ times worse than that had ever been. A stray loop of flailing serpent tripped her as she staggered and she fell heavily to all fours, retching on the meager contents of her empty stomach as the pain and the extent of her stupidity kicked in.

Thumbing her nose at Death once was enough for anyone. She didn't want to start making a habit of it.

"Jane!" Thor cried, and the toe of his boot hooked beneath the writing snake to fling it across the room. It hit the far wall with the sound of wet clay being punched before sliding down into a motionless mass at the base of the wall. Skadi's screech was an awl driving into Jane's ears as she dry-heaved, nausea still twisting her stomach in its vicious grip. If this was what it felt like to merely touch the stuff, she couldn't fathom how Loki survived the poison coursing through his veins. Every breath was a battle fought against herself, against the urge to curl into a ball and whimper. She collapsed with exhaustion, tangling in her cloak as she rolled onto her back and stared up at Loki's bowed head, the pain gradually draining to tolerable.

At the sound of her tearless sobs his face lifted. The eyes that he turned on her were as flat and dull as two pebbles set in his sockets. No hint of lucidity lurked in their stony depths, no spark of recognition. But the fingers of one of his hands twitched, almost as if reaching towards her before they were checked by the band clamped about his wrist.

Light flickered strangely off the smooth ice around her, a reflection of the blue witchfire crackling about Skadi's fingers. "Leash your pet before I avenge mine, Aesir!" Skadi howled, her white hair stirring in the storm that sparked about her.

It was Sif that hauled Jane to her unsteady feet and stood tall before her as Thor rounded on Skadi, a newfound respect on the Aesir shieldmaiden's face. Jane didn't blame her or the others for the surprise that lifted their brows - she'd never in a thousand lifetimes know how she'd managed a strike like that, nor would she probably ever be able to repeat it. She simply thanked God she hadn't managed to somehow stab her own self.

"Your parlor tricks hold no fear for me," Thor growled, one hand wrapping tightly about Mjolnir. "Enough games, enough stalling. Release Loki, now!"

"I can't," Skadi shot back, a macabre grin stretching the skin of her face.

"Explain yourself." Thor's voice rumbled like distant thunder, and even Skadi fell back a step as he advanced on her.

"No spell of mine holds him in bonds any longer. The only thing holding him here is himself, now." Triumph set her red gaze gleaming. "Those shackles were never made to hold a jotun. All he has to do is drop the Aesir mask long enough for them to crumble."

"You violate the spirit of your oath, if not the letter!" Thor raised Mjolnir, and from somewhere far above them, through the layers of ice, they heard the crack of lightning. "You ask the impossible."

"All I want is for him to admit to the betrayer that he is," Skadi hissed. "To stop hiding behind lies! To stop pretending we are simply savages to be culled!" She pointed a finger at Loki, one that trembled with the rage and grief that Jane suddenly saw swamp Skadi's face. "I lost everything at his hands. Parents. Husband. Child. Is it so wrong for me to want him to understand that he is not above us? I wanted to break him, and he resisted. I wanted to use him, and he resisted. This is all I have left, petty as it is."

Beyond the arguing pair, Jane saw motion in the darkened tunnel that had led them to this room. A row of guards filed into the room, blocking their exit. Around her the Aesir drew their own weapons, but no one made motion to attack, not yet. She could see the battle playing out in Thor's darting gaze as his desire to fight warred with prudence, and his knuckles grew white around the grip of Mjolnir. If a skirmish broke out, here and now...what would happen to her? To Loki?

She struggled out from Sif's hold on her and lurched over to Thor, laying a blistered hand gingerly on his free arm. Beneath her fingertips his muscles were inflexible, flinty with anger and tension, but he spared a brief glance down at her.

"Thor," she said quietly, urgency lending force to her words. "Maybe he can do it. It's worth a try. Just ask him." Just the thought of imploring Loki to reach willingly for that part of himself he hated set her insides churning again, but she didn't want to see this all devolve into violence.

His stance softened as he looked down at her, something akin to resignation fanning across his face. "Very well. But...I think it best if you try, Jane."

"I..." She looked back at Loki to find those empty eyes still fixed on her, and the protest withered on her tongue. "Ok."

* * *

He'd been insensate as time crept slowly onwards, cognizant only of the relentless march of minutes that measured the abbreviated span of his lives. Death came, heralded by the dry whisper of scales against skin that drowned out everything else. The rut of repetition had ground him down until he was unable to see or hear anything outside of his trench - not the approach of Skadi as she'd taunted him day in and day out, nor the strange pack of visitors that broke the graveyard peace of his prison. Fortune's wheel rolled on inexorably, lifting him only to crush him beneath its rim once more.

But this time, as the moment of his end drew a swan song from the tuning fork of his bones, the notes jangled and soured. Fell away, and the voice that sang in a chorus of agony wasn't his own. That alone was enough to stir something akin to interest, the brief reprieve drawing him slowly from the fortress he'd carefully built out of memory stacked upon memory, those things that had reminded him he'd lived once outside this pit of despair.

_The __rush __of __discovery __as __he__'__d __found __some __new __path __twisting __amongst __the __stars__._

_Nights __bent __over __parchment__, __ink __swirling __across __the __paper__, __a __spilled __rainbow __bringing __life __to __imaginings__._

_Eyes __brown __as __coffee__, __warm __like __chocolate__, __that __saw __past __illusion __and __didn__'__t __flinch__._

Eyes like the ones that peered up at him now, that belonged to a name he couldn't remember how to form, but the syllable echoed in his pulse - in the quiet space between one heartbeat and the next.

He tried to recall how the envelope of his soul worked, how it had once been more than just an anchor. There were words falling upon his ears, familiar sounds that repeated the same pattern softly, one he realized at long last was his own name.

He crept further from the safe walls of recollections.

A figure stood before him, one that spoke and smelled and looked like his friend. Only it couldn't be, for while his friend was beautiful she looked nothing like this one - resplendent despite the pale hand of pain that pinched her features, garbed like an Aesir in his green and brown. Not a trace of blood to be seen.

Maybe madness had finally come to rescue him from this horror.

But the fingers that brushed his sweat-matted hair from his eyes felt real enough as they smoothed over his gritty forehead. Hope forced persistent roots into the cracks of his doubt and spread the gaps wider.

"Loki," she said again, and he couldn't stop himself from meeting her eyes anymore than the compass could swing elsewhere but true. "We've come to take you home."

That word, it meant something too. The glint of gold, and flowers heavy on the wind. Bittersweet. A lush apple rotten at the core. Lips and tongue moved of their own accord, and though the sound they produced was the barest of whispers, it was still an achievement. "Home?"

Her smile was a string of pearls, precious beyond belief despite the line that creased between her brows. "Yes, home. But there's only one way out of these bonds." She paused, and her eyes slid sideways. An unhappy truth it was to be, then. "As a jotun."

His frayed body recoiled at the thought, and fear greased the rusty joints of his voice. "No, no, no, no, no." It faded into a moan, and madness winked flirtatiously at him, opened wide its forgiving arms. That first step would hurt, but the rest would be so easy... "I cannot. The ship of the north calls, and the wildlings mutter war outside. The wolf howls with the wind, and the gnash of his teeth is white, red and white like splintered bone. They all wait, they all circle, they all sing. All hail the king...long live the king."

He broke off abruptly as a black thought surfaced, a waterlogged corpse bobbing up from the riverbed at last. "Did she send you? Are you even real?" His desperate eyes sought out Skadi's hateful face, and though he gibbered inside his head his voice came out monotone. Conversational. Conspiratorial. "She wants to use me, you know. They all want to. Even you, Jane."

"I don't, I don't!" Her denial was vehement and immediate. One slim hand came up to dash away the sudden tears that gathered on her lashes, her fingers blistered and angry. It was the raw redness of them that convinced him, more than any words ever could have, that he hadn't conjured this all in a fever dream. "I'm sorry I ever even thought I would," she said brokenly, and somehow he felt her sorrow as if it were his own.

"It is alright." He tried his best to reassure her, wanted nothing more desperately than to see the treasure of her smile again. "I am but a tool, forged on Fate's anvil. The sword that cleaves the stars. What other purpose do I have than to be used?"

If he thought to calm her, he'd thought wrong. Her tears froze into anger, and her narrowed eyes grew sharp enough to cut.

"That's stupid," she spat. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, Loki. You're not some weapon of destruction. Fate doesn't exist, and there are no prophecies except those we fill ourselves. Where in the stories does it say your sorry self gets rescued by a human?" The challenge in her eyes melted once more into sadness. "Please try, Loki."

How could he deny her when she blazed before him so?

Hesitantly he reached for that cold hard center that had been buried in his infancy, the kernel of ice that slumbered in reversal of a true seed. Waiting out the eternal summer of the Aesir, sleeping until winter called once more. Skadi had almost reached it with the clumsy spade of her magic, but Odin had sown it too deeply to be ripped free so easily.

He felt as frost traced through his veins and stole the flush from his skin. As those hateful ridges rose like welts over his body. Squeezing shut his eyes, he rode out the moment of blindness as they bled to red. So close, nearly there - but he trembled at the lip of the chasm, couldn't force himself to take the last step that would swing the seasons fully from one to another. Fear worried at his ankles like a wolf, dragged him from the precipice.

"You shouldn't rescue me," he whispered. He couldn't even open his eyes, coward that he was. Couldn't bear to see the disgust that would surely be written on Jane's face. "Leave me here, locked away. A new vault for the same old relic."

Her sigh of exasperation slapped him. "Despite what you want to believe, the only person who doesn't seem to give a damn about you is yourself. Do you think I just hauled my cookies halfway across the universe for the fun of it? Look at me, Loki."

He shook his head mutely, but the fervid motion was stilled by the tight grip of fingers against his cheeks as she cupped his chin. They burned like fire against his frigid skin and startled his lids into lifting. Jane's face filled his vision as she lifted onto her toes and forced his gaze down to meet her own.

"_Look __at __me__,_" she demanded, and her brown eyes seared into his. "If you can't be bothered to care about yourself, then I will. And I'm not. Leaving. Without you."

"Jane..." Her name whispered out with his breath, as if it was the shape all air in his lungs defaulted to.

A tiny smile crinkled the corners of her eyes even as her teeth chattered, and he felt her hands tremble against his face. She pressed a careful kiss against the whorls that marred his forehead, and when she drew back her lips were as blue as his own, but her smile never faded. "The world will not end, I promise. Have I ever lied to you?"

There was something wrapped around his throat, squeezing his torso, but it wasn't the least bit painful. It clambered over him like a flowering vine, bolstered his nerves and lent his faltering limbs strength.

He thought it might be faith.

"No," he said softly, and he knew it was the truest thing he'd ever spoken.

He kicked away the cur of doubt, and took that last step.

Winter washed over him, and he was suddenly aware of the subtle ebb and flow of moisture in the air, of the rivers that rushed below the skin of Jane and Thor, of all the Aesir. He could stop it with a thought if he wanted, not even _seidr_ so much as possession. Water called out to him, begged him to halt its frenzied pace, and he curled his fingers against the urge to comply. Deep within the metal that wrapped about his wrists and ankles he could feel the subtle flaws, the stray wisps of moisture that had been worked into its creation. It was but a thought to seize them, grant their wish, and crack the fetters like so much riverbed stone.

But his strength was only an illusion, and without the support of the cuffs he crumpled to the ground, weak as a kitten. Jane yipped with surprise as he fell heavily atop her, managing with every last shred of will he could gather to hold himself up on one shaking arm and keep from crushing her beneath his frigid self.

Thor hauled him up by one arm, heedless of the way his fingers turned white and waxen with cold. Without a care for Loki's appearance or what it might do to himself, Thor crushed Loki in an embrace that stole what little breath he had left.

"Brother," Thor murmured, in a voice that wavered about the edges. "Truly you are the bravest amongst us."

Over Thor's shoulder he saw with a sinking heart as jotun drifted closer. Jane scrambled to her feet, and fumbled a palm-sized device from her satchel that tilted his mouth with pride even through his weariness. She'd done it, after all. Clever girl.

The advancing guards were halted by a sharp gesture from Skadi, even as Sif, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg drew closed about their princes and Jane, weapons brandished in a bristling circle.

"He has fulfilled his sentence," Skadi called out in a tight voice. Her blue face was a precise mask, even as her crimson gaze burned into his own. Bitterness lurked in it, as expected...but there was resignation as well, laced with sorrow. "Loki is free to leave Jotunheim."

It wasn't triumph though that Loki felt upon seeing her disappointment, nor even hatred. He hung limply from Thor's grip and tried to scrape up anger...rage..._something_ for the queen of Jotunheim, but all he found was a well of exhaustion. And somewhere, at the bottom of it, maybe even comprehension. He inclined his head in silent acknowledgement and was rewarded by the startled blink of her ember eyes.

Just before darkness unfurled its blessed wings over his aching body, and he succumbed to its sweet grasp.


	17. Chapter 17 - A Wall and a Chasm

_Author's Note: To everyone, thank you for your patience with this chapter. I wrote and re-wrote this about five times before giving up, just wanting to move beyond it. I'm woefully behind on thanking people personally for reviews, so if I haven't just rest assured that I will get to it as soon as possible. In the meantime, just know that I adore every one of you for the comments, favorites, and follows._

_Songs for the Chapter: The Scientist, by Coldplay - Cannonball, by Damien Rice - Please Don't Go, by Barcelona_

* * *

Five days Loki had slept so far, and no one seemed to know when he'd wake up. Five days without eating or drinking, of motionless slumber on the golden bed of the healing room that looked like death to Jane no matter how Eir reassured her. It was another reminder, Jane supposed, of how just _not_ human the Aesir were.

Thor had tried his best to keep her busy, showing her sights around Asgard and telling her tale after tale of adventures he and his friends had had. He'd shown up at her door that morning, a broad grin creasing his face as he'd cajoled her from bed and out to the courtyard where a pair of horses were saddled and waiting placidly.

Jane had eyed the black beast Thor brought over warily. The first and only time she'd ever been on a horse was at summer camp, over a decade before. But the beast seemed gentle enough, and put up with her fumbling patiently enough as she struggled into the saddle. Only after she'd noticed Thor's shaking shoulders did he confess that it was the oldest horse they had, reserved for children and the rankest of amateurs, pulled out of retirement for her.

Jane figured a few laughs at her expense was fair turnabout for the way he'd stumbled through the unfamiliar landscape of Earth.

It had been peaceful enough, seeing Asgard from horseback, and the ridge Thor had wound up at the edge of the glittering city offered breathtaking views - but Jane couldn't seem to find a way to enjoy the scenery, with worry nibbling at the edges of everything and dulling the gleam of gold.

They'd dismounted and sat in the shade of a tree Jane thought looked a bit like an elm, only with toothed leaves that shimmered at the corner of her vision. The cheese and fruit Thor offered her would have been exquisite at any other time, but they sat in greasy lumps in her belly after only a few bites.

"All will be well, Jane."

Thor's quiet reassurance stilled her restless hands as they rearranged fragments of food. When she glanced up, his cornflower eyes were soft with concern. She didn't think it was for Loki.

"How can you know that?" She frowned, tearing her bread into ragged chunks that scattered crumbs across her lap. "You saw what had happened to him. People don't just...jump out of bed and go right back to normal, after something like that."

Thor stared out at the skyline, but whatever he saw she didn't think it was the view. "I used to think my brother lesser. Strong, as all Aesir are...but never our equal. Midgard, and all the people on it - even you, Jane...have shown me that there are many different kinds of strength." He turned that gentle smile on her, the one that used to flutter like moth wings behind her knees. "I do not know if I could have endured what he did. He may not be a warrior in the truest sense of the word, but he has a force of will that is frighteningly formidable. I have faith that strength such as that wouldn't see him through this trial only to abandon him on the other side."

She shrugged weakly. "Maybe you're right. I just don't know how long I can wait. I have to go back, Thor. Soon. I left too many people behind that will worry."

"Yes, of course." He shot an odd, sideways glance at Jane that she just barely snagged as she turned her head towards the palace. "You will come back though?"

The shreds of bread in her lap became smaller. "I'm not sure."

She wanted to. Oh, how she did. There was more here than she could ever see in a lifetime, and Asgard was only one of the many realms. She wanted to see them all, to grasp what life she had left with both hands and wring every last drop of experience from it.

But she didn't want to do it alone. Had begun, sometime in the last weeks...days...hours maybe even, to envision another by her side. One with hair the blue-black of her beloved space, who had puzzled out its secrets and hoarded them like treasure. Who'd changed her life in ways that she was only beginning to understand.

But Loki had a place again. A family that welcomed him back, a life regained if he chose. Was there room for her in it now?

Melancholy spooled a heavy sigh from her lips.

"Mother would be sad, if you didn't," Thor teased lightly. "She does so love having a girl to dress up, you know. Norn's know Sif won't let her. There was this one time, when we were very very young boys and we'd made her angry, Loki convinced me that Mother might like us both better if we had been daughters. And so we put on dresses, and plaited our hair, and pranced into her sitting room. I never saw her laugh so hard in all my life." Thor chuckled at the memory, and Jane couldn't help but grin along. "That alone was worth the embarrassment, I suppose."

"You sound like you were difficult children," she said at last, smiling at the image of two young boys, dark and fair, tearing about the palace.

"Yes. Loki always scheming, and I always willing. He wasn't always so..." Thor trailed off, and his fingers reached for a word.

"Bitter?" Jane supplied hesitantly.

Thor smiled, but it was mirthless. More a grimace than a grin. "I suppose that's as good a term as any." He glanced up, and the hard edge of his expression softened as he studied her. "Mayhap he will laugh again. I would give much to see it."

She had to duck her head out from beneath that considering stare, brushing crumbs from her pants as she stood. A slash of black against the robin-egg sky caught her attention, and she shaded her eyes with one hand against the bright midday sun as she peered upwards. It was a raven, larger than any she'd ever seen, and it flew in a determined line towards them. Great wings devoured the air, stirring leaves and branches as it settled onto a perch above their heads, Thor looking absolutely nonplussed by the creature's sudden appearance.

As if the sheer size of it wasn't bizarre enough, the glossy black beak parted and a surprisingly melodic voice rang out from the feathered throat. "Thor. The prince awakens."

Thor unfolded from the grass and offered a chunk of cheese to the bird, which it took delicately from his fingers before bolting it down. "Thank you, Munin," he said. The raven bobbed its head once before taking to the air again, fading rapidly to a mere speck as it winged back towards the shining spires of the palace.

"Every time I think I might be getting used to this place. Please don't tell me my horse can speak too," Jane muttered, and Thor threw his head back with a laugh as he untied the reins of their horses from a nearby sapling.

"Only Sleipnir. Come, Jane. Let us go check on my brother."

She took the strips of leather in hand and did her best to swallow around a mouth gone dry, unable to say if it was fear or joy that stole the grace from her limbs.

* * *

"...And so, I'd thought that a cape of feathers was nearly as good as real wings, and leapt right off the nearest balcony."

"What?" Jane yelped, and the stoic guards that lined the corridor all turned in her direction. She smothered her mouth with one hand and continued, albeit softer. "And you didn't die?"

"Oh no, Asgardian children are far tougher than that. And fortunately the muckrakers had just finished cleaning the horse stalls. A manure cart broke my fall." A wry grin quirked Thor's mouth as they drew up before Loki's rooms. "Along with my collarbone, and my pride."

She was still laughing when Thor pushed the door open, standing on the threshold and holding its weight with one arm. Fingertips at her back guided her through the doorway past himself, five points of politeness that rested gently against the flare of her hip.

Loki sat up in a vast bed of dark wood, emerald bedding piled high about him. His face was pale, but he was awake - his seafoam eyes lifting to flicker over the both of them, pausing briefly at Thor's hand on Jane's waist.

"Loki!" Thor called, and crossed the room in a few great strides, Jane drifting slowly behind.

"Thor," Loki nodded a greeting, and his gaze slid over Thor's shoulder to her. "Jane." The words were cool and painfully polite.

"Hello," she said quietly, her steps faltering at the distant greeting.

Thor came to a halt beside the high bed, and for the first time Jane saw him seem less than sure of himself. His hand hesitated in the air between the two men before falling carefully onto Loki's shoulder, words moving in Thor's throat long before they emerged. "It is good to see you well again, brother."

Jane glanced away from Thor's raw face, towards Loki. He seemed different somehow as he stared up at Thor - his stiff visage cracking slightly, and what peered through the gaps was exhausted and wan, but less burdened in some ways. More like the hint of youth she'd seen atop the roof of her lab so many weeks ago.

Seconds ticked by breathlessly, until at long last Loki spoke. "I'm quite happy to see me well again too." There was only a hint of a dry smile accompanying the words, but a hint was more than had been there moments before.

Thor broke into a broad grin, and the hand on Loki's shoulder squeezed him enthusiastically. "How I have missed you scoffing at death!"

"It would perhaps be best if you tried not to bludgeon the man I've worked so hard to heal, Thor."

Jane turned, startled by the new voice and the casual address, and saw the door shut softly behind a tall woman. Age had brushed lightly against her face, faint lines only serving to enhance the bright intelligence of her startling honey-brown eyes. Waves of blond hair were gathered into a sensible loose plait that hung down past the waist of her fitted linen tunic, and a thin beaten band of copper held rebellious wisps back from her face. What she wore was probably considered simple and practical by Asgardian standards, but she made it look as elegant as any haute couture back on Earth.

Jane squirmed inside her borrowed clothes, and brushed back a lock of hair that had been tangled by her ride.

"Eir," Thor greeted her warmly. "You have, as always, my gratitude."

Eir moved towards them, a spark of humor setting those odd amber eyes almost aglow. "Yes well, I've become rather accustomed to patching you two up. It's practically second nature by now." She moved to stand beside Loki and set one hand atop his brow, the faintest of light radiating from her fingers. "Between the healing room and I, there's not much left wrong with him that a few good days of rest won't solve. Anything else I've missed he can no doubt fix himself, as I'm sure he'll tell me the moment you leave."

"I have no qualms about pointing out your inadequacy before company, Eir," Loki said as he ducked out from beneath her hand, but there was no real malice in the words.

"You ingrate! The only payment I've ever received for teaching you is mockery." Eir turned from him with a grin tilting her mouth to Jane, who was still gaping at this entire exchange.

"Forgive them, they're always like this," Thor murmured, leaning in towards Jane. "Eir is about the only person besides family that Loki seems to tolerate for more than five minutes. I think she's let it go to her head."

Eir laughed, an unabashed sound that brought a smile to Jane's face. If she hadn't known better, she could have almost sworn Eir and Thor were the siblings here, so alike did they seem in looks and temperament despite the age difference. "Well, he only tolerates me because I keep dangling secrets before him like a cat. The moment he thinks I've told him everything I know, he'll be done with me for good."

Loki didn't dignify this with any response, and Jane had no idea what to say. Fortunately it didn't seem to matter to Eir. "You must be the Jane that has everyone in such an uproar. Mortals in Asgard, who'd have thought it? The last time I saw one of your kind you were scarcely beyond rubbing two sticks together for fire, and now you're traveling the realms."

She said it with such incredulous wonder that Jane couldn't even find it in herself to be offended. "That's me," she said lamely.

"Perhaps I will find you later, there's a thousand questions I'd love to ask you about Midgard. Do they still drill holes in skulls to relieve headaches? Or put those leeches to the skin?" Eir shook her head, as if she could rattle loose her own train of thought, and offered Jane an apologetic smile. "I know you just got here, but for now Loki should rest." She made shooing motions towards Jane and Thor.

"We shall return later then. Come, Jane. This is one battle even I know better than to pick." Thor made to usher Jane before him to the door. She balked at the first touch of his hand on her back, reluctant to leave after having scarcely said more than a word to Loki.

"But-" she began, before Thor cut her off.

"_Later_, Jane," he chuckled. "You mortals are so impatient."

Unhappily she allowed herself to be shepherded from the room, pausing at the threshold to steal a glance back at Loki, but she couldn't see his face past the shining fall of Eir's hair.

* * *

She tried to be patient, she really did. At the intersection of the guest and family wings she'd left Thor with murmured excuses and fled back to her set of rooms, frustration a tangled skein in her chest. The wide chair in the corner caught her easily when she threw herself into it and groped for the first book within reach, a treatise on dwarven hierarchy that was placid enough to calm the dead. But when she found herself reading the same page for the fourth time in a row, Jane finally set the offending book back on its shelf and marched from her suite, down the twisting corridors towards Loki's, a path she'd had memorized by her second day back.

The tall panels loomed overhead as she rapped on the thick wood of the door, stomach slowly twisting in the noose of her nervousness.

"Come in." Loki's call was muffled, but she could just make it out. The latch was cold beneath her clammy palm, and it slipped once from her grip before she pushed it down and swung the door inwards.

Loki was standing unsteadily at the foot of the bed, his back to her and one hand clutching the high carved post for balance, a pair of loose pants slung about his hips. Jane made it two steps into the room before she realized that was all he was wearing, and her steps stuttered to a halt.

"Norn's Shears, Eir! I told you I could dress myself," he growled, shooting a glare over his shoulder. Astonishment flickered across his face before it smoothed into a careful neutrality, and his posture stiffened, the line of his back stretching painfully rigid. "Jane."

"Ah...I'm sorry." She cringed at the squeak that crept into her voice and dragged her eyes from the pale length of his torso, corded with lean strength. Even when just shy of convalescent he moved with a grace she envied as he paced slowly to the chest of drawers nearby, drawing out a linen shirt dyed the exact shade of pine needles.

"It is alright," he said at last, turning back with the fabric crushed in his hands. His gaze searched the room behind her. "No escort this time?"

"No, just me. I...we didn't really get a chance to speak, earlier. I wanted to see how you were doing." She realized, now he was standing, that it was more than just a shift in mood that had taken some of the age from his appearance. The sable strands that had once brushed his shoulders had been trimmed far shorter, smoothing back from his face to curl ever so slightly about the nape of his neck. It made him look more boyish...more open, somehow. "You cut your hair," she blurted out inanely, to her immediate chagrin.

One brow arched sardonically. "How terribly observant of you, Jane. I think Eir may have done it while I slept just to annoy me."

"It looks good," she said quietly, and the frown that had creased his brow faltered and then faded.

He began wrestling the shirt over his head, muscles playing beneath his alabaster skin in a distracting dance. Jane dropped her gaze resolutely to the fingers that twisted themselves before her, feeling wretched for ogling the struggles of an ill man. When he emerged wan and sweating to fumble with the lacings at the collar, Jane finally stepped forward.

"Let me help," she offered.

He didn't respond, but his hands fell away as hers raised, even as he stared fixedly at a point over her shoulder. Her lacing went better than his attempts had but she was hampered by how clumsy her own hands were as well, the backs of them dotted with healing scabs.

He might have been marble beneath her hands if not for the pulse she saw framed by the gap of his collar, fluttering skin cupped in the deep hollow of his throat. No matter how recovered he seemed now, the past weeks had taken their toll. His sharp features were even more angular, the ridges of his collarbone slashing across his chest like wings, pressing against the thin material of his shirt. She finished tying the front of his shirt and had to curl her fingers in on themselves at her sides to keep from smoothing over those sharp lines.

"I should have come sooner," she murmured, regret a stone tied about the neck of her words. It didn't matter how impossible she knew that would have been. "Before things got so bad..."

"No." His denial was sharp and guttural, startling her into looking up. The smooth expanse of his neutrality crumbled about the edges, ever so slightly. "I reap only what I have sown, Jane. There is none to blame but myself." His gaze dropped to the angry slash that marred her chest, wandered the freckles of pain that dusted her hands, and sorrow was a leviathan roiling in the depths of his ocean eyes. "You have suffered more than enough for my folly."

She snorted, flexing the fingers of her hands experimentally. "This was nobody's idea but my own," she said ruefully. "I couldn't just stand there and watch."

"You are not so cruel as that." He ran a feather touch over the tiny wounds, draw a shiver from Jane that had nothing to do with pain. "These should have been healed. Has Eir not attended to you?"

"I was told she was busy enough, with you. It seemed silly to bother her over something so small."

He trapped her fingers within the porcelain cage of his own. "Allow me, please."

At her silent nod his lashes fluttered to a rest on his cheeks and the tiniest of creases marred the space between his brows. There was no showy display this time, no green light or flashes to signify any power at work. Just a flush of warmth that trickled from his skin to hers, no longer cool beneath her touch. It sank below the surface, curled tendrils along her nerves and seeped honey-warm into her veins, drawing an embarrassing little sigh from her lips as it circled deep in her belly to mingle with heat of another sort.

That curious resin smell that always clung to him grew stronger, and Jane realized it wasn't just some soap or cologne or artificial odor, but the scent of what he called his magic. Oddly enough it seemed different now, changed in some subtle way from how it had been before they'd parted. Less like a stand of cedars warmed in the sun, and more like the cold gasp of boreal forest, rimed with an ephemeral edge of snow. She leaned into it, let it tickle her throat, and when the warmth slowly drained away and her eyes finally open she found Loki bent over her, his green gaze hooded.

"My apologies, Jane. I may have gotten carried away." The words sounded cordial enough, but the emotion that stretched taut his features was too consuming to be polite.

"I-it's ok," she stammered, still reeling, her lungs forgetting their certain rhythm.

The moment faded as he turned her hands over in his grasp, inspecting them carefully with a darkening frown. The scabs were gone, but in their place were smooth dots of scar tissue, pale and shining against the rest of her skin.

"They'd been left too long on their own to heal properly. I'm so sorry," he murmured. His fingers trembled as they released hers, and somehow he seemed even whiter than before.

"Are you alright?" Jane asked, as he put a hand to his forehead and swayed slightly.

"Just over exerted myself, perhaps," he mumbled.

"Maybe you should sit down. There's no way you can be well, after everything that's happened to you." Jane tried taking his elbow to guide him over to the bed, but was startled when he pulled his arm from her grip.

"I do not need your pity, Jane. You have done enough, already. Leave being my nursemaid to another." He took a deliberate step back, his own hand fisting at his side, and Jane felt the distance like a slap.

Her brows lifted incredulously. "You think I feel sorry for you?"

His gaze fell to the side. "Why else would you be here?"

"I don't know, maybe because that's what people do? Worry about their friends, make sure they're ok? I woke up, in New York, and no one could say what had happened to you or Thor. All I knew was that whatever he'd told you in Puente Antiguo scared the hell out of you, and I had to...I couldn't just..." She broke off and drew in an unsteady breath, trying desperately to wrestle her rebellious thoughts into order.

Loki hardly seemed to notice her abrupt stop as he studied her carefully. "Friends. After everything I've done, everything that's happened to you since I showed up, you would...still consider me this?"

_More __than __that__,_ she almost said. But she faltered before the unreadable mask he wore, and her capricious courage failed her. "Yes," she finally answered.

"Well." The ghost of a smile flitted across his face, gone before she could decipher it. "That's something, then."

It was, like most everything Loki, an enigmatic comment.

"Will you sit down now, please? Before you fall over?" She huffed with exasperation, and his posture loosened enough for her to lead him to one of a pair of chairs that nestled in a corner of bookshelves, upholstered in black and green like everything else in his room. With a barely smothered wince he lowered himself to the cushioned seat and wilted into its depths.

Jane took a seat in the elegant wingback opposite him, sinking into the plush velvet, the fabric warm and almost alive beneath her. She gave him a few minutes, until some color had finally returned to his bloodless face, before she spoke again. "Are you going to stay in Asgard?"

He stirred, and ran absent fingertips over the spines of a small stack of books piled on the table beside his chair. "For now, at least."

She couldn't help but recall the sorrow that had lingered in a lone faded blue eye. "I think that will make your family happy."

"Perhaps. It will certainly overjoy my mother, although pleasing my family has scarcely been a concern of mine lately." His smile shaded toward a grimace, but never lost its touch of rueful humor. "And you, Jane?" His attention wandered to the view out an open window that looked down on the riotous courtyard she'd ridden out from that morning. "Has my brother convinced you to trade this realm for yours yet?" The words were light, teasing almost.

"No," she said, as she shook her head slowly. "Asgard is as beautiful as you said, but...I have to go home. Tomorrow I think, now that I know you're alright. I sort of left in a hurry, and Tony is probably worried about me by now. I'm sure Erik is.

His gaze never left the window. "I see."

An uncomfortable silence fell between them, awash with words Jane tried to force out but they kept slipping from her grasp, like seaweed in the tide. The light that slanted into the room was burnished by encroaching sunset, and the ruddy hues of it picked out the exhaustion that was still stamped faintly on his features.

Jane stood abruptly, twisting her hands behind her as she fought the cowardice that urged her to just cut and run. "Maybe I should let you rest some more." She gnawed on the edge of her lower lip as she moved toward the doorway, pausing to look back over her shoulder at his angular profile. "Will we see you at dinner tonight? Before I leave?"

Maybe there at least she'd have another chance to see if this awkwardness between them was permanent.

"Of course," he said, turning towards her at last, and the smile he flashed was brilliant enough to almost conceal the shadows in his eyes. "Farewell for now, Jane. Thank you for the visit."

She nodded and stepped into the hall, intentions turned to a grit in her mouth that she choked on all the long walk back.

* * *

He didn't show for dinner.

The hopeful place setting gaped at her all meal, like an empty tooth socket. Painfully obvious. Somehow she made it through that meal as she'd made it through all the others, Eir's constant stream of questions helping to distract her from the feeling that a sliver had lodged itself in her heart. Even Thor's tales fell flat for her that night, and by dessert her cheeks ached with forced smiles.

Perhaps Loki had just fallen asleep, perhaps he'd been even more tired than he'd looked.

But it hadn't been exhaustion exactly that had shuttered his face when she left, no matter how many times she told herself so. It hadn't been fatigue that had yawned between them like a chasm she couldn't figure out how to bridge.

She'd dragged herself back to her bedroom, fuzzed with a bit more mead than she usually drank, the alcohol thickening her fingers as she fumbled with the dress Frigga had wrapped her so carefully in. Jane had even picked the green one, of the handful the queen had offered her when dressing for dinner. Not that it had really mattered. She left the dress in a puddle of emerald on the floor and wriggled into her comfortable old jeans and t-shirt, sick of everything Aesir for the moment.

The small balcony that jutted out from wide double doors offered her a view of the emerging stars, the speckled view beckoning her out into the twilight. It truly seemed eternally summer here, the soft breath of the breeze whispering away the heat of the day, never blowing quite cold enough to chill. The fresh air wafted away the worst of the muzziness she felt from overindulgence, leaving just a hollow stomach in its wake. Leaning against the stone railing, she tilted her head to the skies and searched the heavens, but there was no comfort to be found there. Patterns were all wrong here, the constellations broken and rearranged into unfamiliar shapes that mocked her attempts at solving them. She'd always been wretched at reading emotions and dealing with people - half the reason she'd turned to science - but she'd never been tripped up by the cosmos.

Now Asgard had stolen even the stars from her.

Her eyes burned hotly as she stared sightlessly at the bruised sky, unaware of how much time had passed while night nibbled at the horizon. A soft knock at the door of her chambers pulled her from her thoughts, and she turned from the view to the dark interior of her rooms.

"It's open," she called, assuming it was one of the servants come to help her pack for the next day. Frigga had mentioned sending someone with a few satchels of things for her, at dinner. The door swung hesitantly open, but the lean figure on her threshold didn't belong to any of the servants.

"Please forgive my intrusion at such a late hour," Loki said, as he hovered in the doorway.

Jane blinked dry eyes a few times. "It's no problem," she murmured, arms folding before her as she leaned a hip against the balcony. "Come in."

Loki drifted across the polished stone of her floor, boots somehow noiseless. He was more presentable than he'd been earlier, in leather like she was accustomed to seeing but this looked far less formal. Scarcely any metal decorated his tunic save a few scattered studs, just elaborate cross-hatches of fabric that accented his lean stomach and arms. She pulled her traitorous eyes from the fascinating pattern that arrowed ever lower, and met his quiet gaze.

"You didn't make it to dinner." She didn't mean for it to sound so accusing, but her tongue had sharpened itself on the whetstone of her frustration.

He opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally spoke. "No, I'm sorry. I was busy."

Guilt squirmed half-heartedly beneath her ribcage. "You've probably got a lot of catching up to do," she surmised. "You've been away a long time."

He moved to stand beside her, folding arms atop the railing and leaning out towards the skyline. "I have, but things don't really change much in Asgard. One of it's dubious charms, I suppose."

The soft call of some night bird warbled in the gardens below her room as Jane's mouth clogged with small talk. Loki peered down into the branches and blossoms below, as if he could spy the source of the song. She turned to look as well, catching from the corner of her eye as his gaze flickered over her.

"Truth be told, I was busy with something for you," Loki said, and Jane's chest shrank the tiniest of bits.

"Oh?" She tried desperately for idle curiosity, with mixed success. "For me?"

He pushed away from the balcony and his pale hands circled about themselves in an odd gesture, one that pulled wisps of green and gold from the dusky air that congealed into a thick sheaf of neatly squared papers, tied with a wide band of mossy velvet. He held the bundle tightly for a beat that stretched just past polite before holding it out to her with the tiniest quirk of his lips. "Indeed. A gift, of sorts."

She reached for the packet, weighty in a way that only quality paper could be, the pages creamy beneath her fingertips. "What is it?" she asked as she slipped the ribbon off, but as she began to thumb through the first few pages a leaden sort of certainty trickled through her, each line of formula and every diagram another heavy drop.

"Copies of my notes. Theories, what certainties I've discovered. It should help you with your research, I believe."

"Oh." Jane felt as if she'd reached for a knife and suddenly found the handle reversed, clutching a naked blade that sliced to the bone. The sheaf sagged in her hands, pages leaning precariously. "I had thought...perhaps you might..."

She couldn't seem to form the phrases to frame her pitiful hopes - that he'd consider continuing their partnership, at the least. That he'd be willing to show her these things in person.

That this wouldn't be the last time she saw him.

The edge of one page parted the tender skin between her thumb and forefinger as she hastily arranged them back into order, and the band of velvet slipped from her grasp at the sudden sting.

Loki bent to retrieve the huddled scrap of fabric, his face and posture rigid. "It seems the least I could do, after everything. I owe you a great deal, Jane." He held it out to her and she wrestled it back around the loose leaves, unwilling to read another line of cold numbers.

Did it rankle him that much, being indebted to a human? He'd never made his opinion of her race any sort of a secret, but she'd begun to think...perhaps after everything...and he'd even seemed to agree they were friends of a sort.

But the differences between her race and his own, between Earth and here, were painfully obvious. With every smooth limb and tossing riot of curls, every breath-taking vista, Jane measured and saw. With a place such as this for home, Earth and Puente Antiguo had been nothing more than the port in his storm.

Was that all she'd been too?

The need to know had turned the air to tar in her lungs - but she churned it in and out, regardless of how it clung to her throat. Some questions were too painful to be asked when the answers had such potential for claws.

"Thank you." She forced the words out, glass shards of false gratitude that tattered her tongue.

"You are most welcome." His lips parted, as if he thought to say more, and ancient eyes tried to hold hers, but Jane couldn't meet them. Didn't dare. Her heart lurched a few more beats before he captured her free hand in his, lifting it to press the faintest of kisses over the thin red line of her papercut, a tiny spark of sensation and magic that left unbroken skin in its wake.

"Fare thee well, Jane," he murmured against back of her hand, and the whisper of his warm breath felt like a flail.

"Goodbye, Loki," she managed, not daring to move lest her precarious composure crumble, and with the faintest of shimmers he was gone, leaving only a soft smear of gold across the night air to mark he was ever there.

And if her eyes were smudged with red the next morning, no one commented on it. If anyone but she marked the absence of a dark head in the gathering that saw her off the next morning, no one made mention of that either.

But it escaped no one's notice, and weighted glances were exchanged long after the light of her departure had winked out.


End file.
